EXCLUSIVE: Nika King, who for two seasons as played Leslie Bennett, the mother of Zendaya’s Rue on HBO’s Emmy winning series Euphoria, has inked with Wonder Street for Management.
King has had a riveting season as Leslie, faced with the dire straits of having to choose between saving drug-addicted, reckless Rue or her younger daughter, Gia. At one point, Leslie is involved in an intervention for Rue which follows the latter to rock bottom.
Miami native King made her first acting appearance in the TV movie Miss Miami in 2002. A Groundlings alum, her TV credits include OWN’s Greenleaf, 2 Broke Girls, Hannah Montana, Best Friends Whenever, and NCIS: Los Angeles and the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore movie 50 First Dates.
King is also a prolific standup comic, featured on Laff Mob’s Laff Tracks, and is touring around the country.
King directed the short movie For Sale starring Sabrina Revelle, Rayan Lawrence, and Mitchie Edler.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, King launched the startup Jeli Life, an online mentorship program for marginalized communities in the entertainment industry. She also founded the 501(c)(3) organization Rose of Sharon, which focuses on improving mental health in the Black community.
King remains repped by Fox Rothschild.
Euphoria rose to new highs with the dramatic and messy season 2 finale, pulling in 6.6 million viewers across all HBO platforms. The season 2 finale was +30% in viewers from the previous week and surpassed the Season 1 finale which drew 530K viewers. Euphoria now marks HBO’s second-most watched series, following behind Game of Thrones. Per HBO, Euphoria Season 2 episodes currently average 16.3 million viewers each across all platforms, making for the best performance of a season for any HBO series other than Thrones since 2004. Viewership for the Season 2 premiere stood at 19M total viewers as of Feb. 28.
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