Edi Gathegi

Edi Gathegi Photo

EDI GATHEGI

Date of Birth: March 10, 1979

Edi Gathegi was born in Nairobi, Kenya and grew up in Albany, California. He has a younger sister "Betty G" and an older brother "Nate Dawg." Gathegi attended the University of California, Santa Barbara as an undeclared undergraduate, and was interested in basketball. After taking an acting class during time off from basketball due to an injury, he fell in love with performing arts and wound up attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for a graduate acting program. His career began in theater with credits such as Twelfth Night, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Gathegi first appeared onscreen as a Haitian cab driver in Crank (2006) and later landed roles in Death Sentence (2007), Gone Baby Gone (2007), Twilight (2008) and My Bloody Valentine (2009). He had a recurring role on the television series House M.D. as Dr. Jeffrey 'Big Love' Cole, and has appeared on Lincoln Heights, Veronica Mars, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Miami.

When Gathegi first auditioned for Twilight, he had not heard of the series and wasn't aware that his character was a vampire. He has now read the entire series and is a "hardcore" fan. He still acts in theater, appearing in the Broadway production Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and enjoys exploring, traveling, sports, reading and watching movies.