Sanaa Lathan (1971- ) is an American actress. She is best known as the heroine in “Alien vs. Predator” (2004) and as Omar Epps’s girlfriend in “Love and Basketball” (2000). In 2006 she became an important character on the television show “Nip/Tuck”.
“Sanaa” sounds like the beginning of “Sinatra”.
While not yet as good as Halle Berry, she is easily one of the top ten black actresses in Hollywood.
According to this blog she is the seventh most beautiful woman in the world. I saw her in “Disappearing Acts” (2000) and could not take my eyes off her. Looking at her is like eating ice cream on a hot summer day.
And I am not alone. Ebony magazine says she has a “timeless look” and put her in their “55 Most Beautiful People”. Even white-boy Maxim once put her in their “Hot 100”.
She has not just beauty but also brains (degrees from Berkeley and Yale), talent and a great deal of patience and faith. Her grace and strength has been compared to Katherine Hepburn. She puts her whole self into whatever she does.
She is from New York. She grew up in Harlem and Beverly Hills in a show business family. Her mother danced on Broadway in “The Wiz” and her father directed television shows for PBS and others. She grew up dancing and hanging out at the theatre.
But she knew better than most that to succeed in show business is hard, that talent is not always rewarded. She also saw how entertainers are not respected. So she wanted to go into law. But then Yale talked her into coming there to study acting, as Angela Bassett and Meryl Streep had done before her.
Yale was hard, but by then she knew she was meant to be an actress. When she told her father, it broke his heart: he knew a hard road lay ahead of her.
In the 1990s she tried to make it on Broadway but failed. Her father asked her to try Hollywood instead. She did. She got bit parts on some television shows – once she even tormented Urkel on “Family Matters”. She landed regular parts on two shows, both short-lived. But by then she was getting parts in films.
At last she made her name as a serious actress in 2000 in “Love and Basketball”. She has since appeared on Broadway and continues to do television too.
She likes film, but her true love is theatre where she has a live audience.
You do not see her in many films. She wants to be a great actress, not a famous one. So she chooses her parts with great care. She knows that films are forever, that her grandchildren will see them.
She also knows that her work affects how people see black women. That is why, for example, she appears in “Alien vs Predator”: the last one standing is a black woman. And why she plays the evil Michelle Landau on “Nip/Tuck”: rarely on American television has a black woman been so important to white men.
See also:
- IMDb – Sanaa Lathan – updated list of her films and television shows
- Films of hers I have written about:
- 2000: Love & Basketball
- 2006: Something New
- The ten most beautiful women in the world
- The most beautiful black actresses
- black actresses
- film
- television
- New York
- cutiecentral.com – has hundreds of pictures of her
I have to shout RIGHT ON!!
Although there are beautiful women in every race, Black women are by far more beautiful in general. Especially African-American women. Besides the physical characteristics you mentioned, black hair, high cheek bones and almond eyes, I also love their soft dark skin, dark eyes and, yes their uniquely attractive derriere. But there is another very significant characteristic that makes the black women that I have known uniquely beautiful. They carry themselves with a since of dignity and respect un rivaled in, say, the white women I have met. As one white man who particularly admires black women put it, Black women exude feminine power.” (nice huu?)
Best regards,
Tom
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I totally agree,Tom
Could you tell me who you quote here? (“Black women exude feminine power.”) I love this quote!!
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I dis-agree!!! She is the 2nd best looking women in the world, my wife and her look like twins…my wife is just thicker but she is gorgeous! They both are.
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No you are not alone. I think she is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.
I think she is a better actress than Halle Berry.
I am enamored with Sanaa Lathan, and so in trouble if my wife read this, lol!
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Sanaa Lathan is a beautiful, sexy, and elagant women, who if i met her in real life i would ask her out on a date she’s absolutely gorgeous, and looking at her hurts my eyes, she his so fine as well as intelligent and……… im lost for words
i would love to meet sanaa, but that may only occur in my dreams, oh well
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I luv dis chic so much that it brings tears to my eyes and i want to meet her so bad
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Yes, she is absolutely gorgeous.
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Yes, my husband’s jaw dropped the first time he saw her. Gorgeous woman. She’d be much higher up on my list.
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I am surprised that she has not been able to elevate her status in hollywood as she comes from a long line of famous people, her father well known producer.
For me, she surpasses Halle & Beyonce in the beauty and brain dept. She looks incredible on screen.
Also the same can be said of Stacey Dash,Michael Michelle, etc..- these women in hollywood far surpass all the white american female actresses in Hollywood. Angeline Jolie could only wish she looked that good naturally!!!
I loved her in Something New, America needs more movies like this, but sadly if you noticed they cast a sexy Australian (Simon Baker ) to play her love interest, they were indeed so cute together.
Sanaa = simply stunning.
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she is one beautiful woman. i loved her in love and basketball, which is one of my favorite love movies. even though she played a tomboy, she still was gorgeous. and i think she’s a better actress than halle berry.
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She absolutely takes my breath away.
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Obviously one of the top 10 famous most beautiful women around, at least according to me!
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Me too!
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u very beautiful wish i could marry u contact me at email address.
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she leaves me….
breathless….
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beautiful black women, I live in Africa, I see Meagan Good’s who will never make it to this list, but they still remain…. chocolate beauties: here’s the list of African countries that produce the hottest beauties- Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa (in that order)
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black women are like red wine. get better with age
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Just so fine.
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Sanna is very simple living girl however she is big actrees if there is broun- black faces her is the indication of pity & kind I respect her & will be a friend ,iam from Norway. I aspect her own reply to me . Love is the snow of tear but respect is the diamond of life . Thanks
Mr. Ananda ( a Norwegian Nepali)
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i love who cares
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Guys when i saw her in a movie..i was gone ! stunning beauty .i would love to live with her for rest of life
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Sanaa is a far better actress than Halle Berry could dream of being–the academy awards are just a popularity contest and have nothing to do with talent–and she is sexier too. I guess because I find intelligence sexy….
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Oh, and BTW, I am a white male who agrees with most of your other selections
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you are beautiful i like
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Uuh. What a babe. I especially like her hair in that main picture. Which is weird because I normally NEVER pay any attention to women’s hair.
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Wooouh i like ure movies mamah!
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she is hot,very very hot.Althogh black women are beautiful when they want to be.
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damn she’s stunning !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I need her as friend, she’s 2 pretty.
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I JUST LOVE SANAA, SHE IS GORGEOUS, I FELL IN LOVE WITH HER AFTER WATCHING THE MOVIE “OUT OF TIME”, SHE WAS HOT IN THAT FILM!!!!!!!!
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LUV 2 teach her how 2 KISS : ) aloha hb
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Sanaa Lathan is SUPER-FINE!! (All capital letters-fine!!)
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@Kiwi
Not to post in a thread that hasn’t had a post in nearly a year, but I thought I’d comment on what you wrote. Are you sure a lot of audiences believed that the white woman who died early on was the main character? Neither myself nor anybody I’ve watched AVP with assumed she was anything more than a throwaway character, even before her early death. Also, as a member of the AVP fandom, I can only think of one poste on a forum who bemoaned her early death and stated she should have been more main.
Anyways, I thought I’d point out that I have always thought Sanaa Lathan was beautiful. If I ever got around to making a list of my the Top 10 Most Beautiful Famous Women, she would definitely be in the Top 10. In fact, after watching Alien vs Predator, I saw Love and Basketball simply because she was in it.
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Hello tthanks, but can i know u?
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