Black Actors and Actresses
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Black Actors and Actresses trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Black actors and actresses have shaped film and television from the silent era onwards, often while fighting for the kind of parts their talent deserved. Their stories are full of firsts: the first Academy Award, the first leading-role nomination, the first network series built around a Black woman who was not playing a servant. This quiz covers the pioneers of old Hollywood, the box-office names of the 1980s and 1990s, and the faces of today's superhero franchises and prestige dramas. Expect questions on award-winning performances, signature characters, stage names, early jobs and the turning points behind famous careers. It is written for movie fans, pub quiz hosts, teachers planning a Black History Month activity and anyone who likes putting a name to a role. Every question gives you a clue to reason from and four choices, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Gone with the Wind actress became the first African American to win an Academy Award?
Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel had to sit at a segregated table for two at the far wall of the room on the night she won her Oscar.
Q 02Which actor's likeness did Marvel use for its Ultimate Nick Fury comics, years before he played the role on film?
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson, a keen comic book reader, recognised himself on the page, and his agents' call to the publisher won a pledge to cast him.
Q 03Which star of Lilies of the Field became the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier was born two months premature in Miami, where his Bahamian parents had travelled to sell tomatoes, and was not expected to survive.
Q 04Which X-Men star became the first Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress?
Halle Berry
Halle Berry won for Monster's Ball, then three years later collected a Razzie for Catwoman in person, with her Oscar in her other hand.
Q 05Which Electric Company regular went on to play God, Nelson Mandela and a US president on film?
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman loathed his years on the children's show, its producer recalled, yet it gave him his first financial stability as an actor.
Q 06Which Sister Act star won an Oscar as a psychic in Ghost and later completed the EGOT?
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg, born Caryn Johnson, has said her stage name came from people comparing her to a whoopee cushion.
Q 07Which actor played Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall as well as Marvel's king of Wakanda?
Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman kept his 2016 colon cancer diagnosis private and went on working through surgeries and chemotherapy, completing several more films.
Q 08Which drama with an all-Black cast won Best Picture moments after La La Land was announced by mistake?
Moonlight
Moonlight got its award only after presenter Faye Dunaway read out the wrong title from a duplicate Best Actress envelope.
Q 09James Earl Jones, who overcame a severe childhood stutter, supplied the voice of which Star Wars villain?
Darth Vader
Darth Vader was played in costume by David Prowse, and Jones asked to go uncredited for his voice work on the first two films.
Q 10Which Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix to make Wild Wild West?
Will Smith
Will Smith has said he has no regrets, reckoning that Keanu Reeves played the part better than he would have himself.
Q 11Which actor won Oscars for Glory and Training Day and played Malcolm X for director Spike Lee?
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington grew up barred from going to the cinema by his father, an ordained Pentecostal minister.
Q 12Which former Saturday Night Live star plays multiple roles in The Nutty Professor and voices Donkey in Shrek?
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy also voiced the dragon Mushu in Disney's Mulan, and won his first Emmy in 2020 for going back to host the sketch show.
Q 13Which actress, born in Mexico City and raised in Nairobi, won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave?
Lupita Nyong'o
Lupita Nyong'o owes her Spanish first name, a diminutive of Guadalupe, to a Luo tradition of naming a child after the events of the day.
Q 21Which British star of Get Out later won an Oscar for playing Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton?
Daniel Kaluuya
Daniel Kaluuya started out on the British teen drama Skins, playing Posh Kenneth and co-writing some of its episodes.
Q 22Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland?
Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker went to college on a football scholarship, then switched to music after a back injury and trained as an operatic tenor.
Q 23Which Boyz n the Hood lead won an Oscar as the wide receiver Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire?
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Q 14Which How to Get Away with Murder star completed the EGOT when her memoir's audiobook won a Grammy?
Viola Davis
Viola Davis had already become the first Black actress to win the Emmy for lead actress in a drama, as the lawyer Annalise Keating.
Q 15Which actor, born Eric Bishop, won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Ray Charles?
Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx picked an ambiguous first name because female comedians were often called up to perform first, and a surname honouring Redd Foxx.
Q 16Which actress played Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It and T'Challa's mother Ramonda for Marvel?
Angela Bassett
Angela Bassett became the first person nominated for an acting Oscar for a Marvel Studios film, for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Q 17Which future Morpheus of The Matrix lied about his age at 14 to be cast in Apocalypse Now?
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence Fishburne played a cocky 17-year-old gunner's mate from the Bronx in the Vietnam War epic.
Q 18Which Creed star first gained recognition playing Wallace in the first season of HBO's The Wire?
Michael B. Jordan
Michael B. Jordan went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing twin brothers in the period horror film Sinners.
Q 19Which actress won an Oscar as the feisty maid Minny in The Help and later starred in Hidden Figures?
Octavia Spencer
Octavia Spencer also voiced Minny on the audiobook of Kathryn Stockett's novel, and her Academy Award came on her first nomination.
Q 20Which London-born actor played drug boss Stringer Bell in The Wire and the detective John Luther?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba also performs as DJ Big Driis, a sideline that began when he helped out with his uncle's wedding DJ business as a teenager.
Cuba Gooding Jr. started out as a breakdancer, performing with Lionel Richie at the closing ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Q 24Which actor played the vampire hunter Blade and the drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City?
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes has trained in martial arts since he was 12 and holds a fifth-degree black belt in Shotokan karate.
Q 25Which actor played veteran detective Roger Murtaugh opposite Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon films?
Danny Glover
Danny Glover took part as a student in a five-month strike at San Francisco State to establish a Department of Black Studies.
Q 26Which talk show host earned an Oscar nomination as Sofia in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple?
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey returned to the story two decades later as a producer of its Broadway musical adaptation.
Q 27Which rapper, born Dana Owens, earned an Oscar nomination as Matron Mama Morton in the musical Chicago?
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah found the second half of her stage name, meaning delicate and very kind, in a book of Arabic names when she was eight.
Q 28Which singer placed seventh on American Idol, then won an Oscar for her screen debut in Dreamgirls?
Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Hudson went on to collect an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony as well, completing the EGOT in 2022.
Q 29Which actress played mathematician Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures and Cookie Lyon in the TV drama Empire?
Taraji P. Henson
Taraji P. Henson earned her Oscar nomination as the adoptive mother of Brad Pitt's title character in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Q 30Which actor won an Oscar as the tough drill instructor Sergeant Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman?
Louis Gossett Jr.
Louis Gossett Jr. became the first Black American to win Best Supporting Actor, having already won an Emmy as Fiddler in the miniseries Roots.