American actor and businessman
Grew up in the Pontchartrain Park section of New Orleans.
Attended Benjamin Franklin High School and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA).
Both the part of Antoine Batiste on Treme and the part of Owen Thoreau, Jr., on "Men of a Certain Age" were created with him in mind. He was offered both parts around the same time but had to choose Treme since it was about New Orleans, his hometown.
According to the Marketplace radio program, in December, 2011, he opened Sterling Express, the first in a chain of grocery stores selling fresh produce and other staples in his hometown of New Orleans.
Wendell Pierce plays trombone player Antoine Batiste on the TV series Treme, but he is not really a trombonist. When he got the role he started taking lessons so that his handling of the instrument would look credible on-screen. An off-screen professional trombone player provides the actual music for Batistes scenes of playing the instrument. Pierce told NPR that prior to accepting the role on Treme, his horn playing had previously been limited to about two weeks of trumpet lessons in the sixth grade.
After losing his childhood home to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Wendell suffered yet another devastating loss in August 2016 when another home was taken from him due to widespread flooding in Louisana. The recent flooding is almost 11 years to the day when Katrina made landfall.
