Wesley Snipes

CTL-E-6086 · Person · other · 1962–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07307 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6086.

Wesley Trent Snipes, born July 31, 1962, in Orlando, Florida, and raised in the Bronx, is an American actor, producer, martial artist, and author whose career spans more than forty years. Educated at the State University of New York at Purchase, where he earned a fine-arts degree, he broke through in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Major League, Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, and a star-making turn as Nino Brown in New Jack City. He consolidated that success in White Men Can't Jump and Passenger 57, won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for One Night Stand in 1997, and formed Amen-Ra Films in 1991. His defining role came as Eric Brooks in Blade in 1998, reprised in two sequels and again in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024. Trained from age twelve, he holds a fifth-dan black belt in Shotokan karate and a second-dan in Hapkido. He also debuted as a novelist with Talon of God in 2017, extending a career built on action stardom, dramatic range, and Black leading-man presence.

The record

• Also known as: Wesley Trent Snipes, Eric Brooks / Blade (screen role)

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Wesley Snipes entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6086 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 1 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1433). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black America canon: a leading Black action star and Marvel pioneer, in scope under PPL-001 as national cultural record beyond the Chicago-first core. Vital status: Living. No death report in any opened source; he gave interviews about his Blade return in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024 (ComicBook.com, published 2024-08-03), aged 61 at that return. STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Born July 31, 1962 (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16); career spanning more than 40 years with films grossing over $3.6 billion worldwide (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16); Blade appearances in 4 films — 1998, 2002, 2004, 2024 (ComicBook.com, 2024-08-03); 5th dan Shotokan and 2nd dan Hapkido (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16); Volpi Cup for Best Actor, 1997, for One Night Stand (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16). MEDIA: photo HELD (Wesley Snipes signing autographs at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010, photograph captioned on his Wikipedia page (accessed 2026-10-16); a later PHOTO-001 pass would need to verify photographer and licence — no licence claimed here. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6086-wesley-snipes.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Spike Lee — collaborated with
  Lee cast Snipes as Shadow Henderson in Mo' Better Blues (1990) and as lead in Jungle Fever (1991)

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Wesley Snipes" (accessed 2026-10-16) — birth July 31, 1962 in Orlando, SUNY Purchase BFA, filmography from Major League and New Jack City through Blade (1998) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Amen-Ra Films founded 1991, martial-arts dan ranks, Talon of God (2017), and films grossing over $3.6 billion — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Snipes (build store)
• ComicBook.com, "Wesley Snipes Breaks Two Guinness World Records For Playing Blade" (published 2024-08-03, accessed 2026-10-16) — Snipes first played Blade in 1998, returned in 2002 and 2004 and again in Deadpool & Wolverine, setting Guinness records for longest live-action Marvel career and longest gap between Marvel appearances — https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/wesley-snipes-breaks-two-guinness-world-records-for-playing-blade-deadpool-wolverine/ (primary source · build store)
• Empire, "Wesley Snipes News & Biography" (accessed 2026-10-16) — birth date, production company in 1991, martial-arts training from age twelve, and early roles including the 'Bad' music video and Major League — https://www.empireonline.com/people/wesley-snipes/ (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6086 · Combined Graph record U-07307 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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