Taye Diggs

Biography: The first original cast member of the Broadway phenomenon Rent to make the leap to Hollywood, this sexy triple threat seduced Angela Bassett—along with drooling droves of female audiences—with his steamy, mostly shirtless turn as an eye-catching islander in the 1998 chick flick How Stella Got Her Groove Back. With his jaw-dropping physique and dazzling smile, Diggs seemed capable of sparking lust in even the most frigid of viewers. But the versatile player proved he could also inspire fear (as a villain in the sci-fi actioner Equilibrium), laughs (as an upper-crust actor playing "ghetto" in the racial satire Malibu's Most Wanted) and toe-tapping (as the piano-playing bandleader in the movie musical Chicago). He also found the time to regularly return to his theatrical roots, appearing in a number of New York productions, including the musical version of The Wild Party at Manhattan Theater Club and the Tony Award-winning Wicked, both opposite his former Rent costar—and eventualThe first original cast member of the Broadway phenomenon Rent to make the leap to Hollywood, this sexy triple threat seduced Angela Bassett—along with drooling droves of female audiences—with his steamy, mostly shirtless turn as an eye-catching islander in the 1998 chick flick How Stella Got Her Groove Back. With his jaw-dropping physique and dazzling smile, Diggs seemed capable of sparking lust in even the most frigid of viewers. But the versatile player proved he could also inspire fear (as a villain in the sci-fi actioner Equilibrium), laughs (as an upper-crust actor playing "ghetto" in the racial satire Malibu's Most Wanted) and toe-tapping (as the piano-playing bandleader in the movie musical Chicago). He also found the time to regularly return to his theatrical roots, appearing in a number of New York productions, including the musical version of The Wild Party at Manhattan Theater Club and the Tony Award-winning Wicked, both opposite his former Rent costar—and eventual wife—Idina Menzel. In 2001, Diggs showed the small screen couldn't dampen his charisma, with a recurring romantic role on Ally McBeal. Three years later, he headlined his first series, the critically lauded dramedy Kevin Hill, which unfortunately failed to register with viewers. In 2006, after a stint as the title character's gay boyfriend on the final season of Will & Grace, Diggs gave TV stardom another shot as a cop trapped in a time loop in the high-concept, 24-esque Day Break, but the show was yanked after a handful of episodes. His TV career was finally resuscitated by the Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice, in which he was cast in the role of Sam Bennett, an internist trying to survive the medical and romantic entanglements at the Oceanside Wellness Center.… Expand