Lorraine Toussaint is a Trinidadian actress whose career has spanned more than three decades across theater, film, and television. Born on April 4, 1960, in Trinidad and Tobago, she moved to the United States as a child and eventually pursued acting professionally. Over the years, she has earned a reputation as a versatile and commanding performer, receiving numerous accolades including a Black Reel Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Toussaint began her career in theater before transitioning to film and television. She made her feature film debut in Breaking In in 1989, followed by supporting roles in Hudson Hawk in 1991 and Dangerous Minds in 1995. During this period, she also became a familiar face on television, appearing in a recurring role as defense attorney Shambala Green in the NBC legal drama Law & Order, a part she would revisit across multiple seasons.

Her breakthrough as a lead actress came in 1998 when she starred as Rene Jackson in the critically acclaimed Lifetime drama series Any Day Now, a role she held until 2002. The series explored themes of race, friendship, and social justice, and Toussaint's performance earned widespread praise. She continued to work steadily in television, appearing as a regular cast member in the NBC police procedural Crossing Jordan from 2002 to 2003 and the TNT crime drama Saving Grace from 2007 to 2010.

In 2012, Toussaint received critical acclaim and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in the drama film Middle of Nowhere, written and directed by Ava DuVernay. She collaborated with DuVernay again in 2014, playing the role of Amelia Boynton Robinson in the historical drama Selma. That same year, she delivered a career-defining performance as Yvonne "Vee" Parker, the main antagonist in the second season of the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black, for which she won a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Toussaint remained in high demand throughout the 2010s and 2020s, co-starring in the ABC fantasy-drama series Forever from 2014 to 2015, the Fox comedy-drama Rosewood from 2015 to 2017, the AMC drama Into the Badlands from 2018 to 2019, and the NBC drama The Village in 2019. She also appeared in films such as Fast Color in 2018, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark in 2019, The Glorias in 2020, and Concrete Cowboy in 2020. From 2021 to 2025, she was a co-star on the CBS crime drama The Equalizer. Toussaint is married to Michael Tomlinson.