Donald Faison was and raised in New York City by actor parents, Shirley and Donald. From a very early age, Faison watched from the sidelines as his parents worked nightly with the groundbreaking National Black Theater in Harlem. By the age of five, he showed a talent for memorizing everyone's lines and decided that, if he could do that so easily, he wanted to get in on pretending to be someone else to complete the picture. His first training ground was at the theater's on-site community school, the Children's School for the Development of Intuitive and God Conscious Art. He went on to perform with the youth theater group, CityKids, eventually graduating from the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts. By then, he had a long resume of both stage experience and television commercials and felt ready to make a go of it in Hollywood.
The 18-year-old newcomer made his film debut almost immediately with a small part in the Harlem-set crime drama, "Juice" (1992 which led to teen thug roles in the similarly hard-hitting Wesley Snipes vehicle, "Sugar Hill" (1994) and "New Jersey Drive" (1995). For Faison, 1995 was a breakthrough year with his role in "Clueless" (1995), the mega-popular Beverly Hills-set update of Jane Austen's "Emma," in which Faison played the affable and somewhat goofy high school student, Murray. In another of that year's biggest box office hits, Faison was seen as Loretta Devine's smart aleck son in the female-focused ensemble drama, "Waiting to Exhale."
The following year he reprised his role on the "Clueless" TV spin-off (ABC, 1996-97; UPN, 1997-99) and also landed a recurring role on the ABC sitcom "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (ABC, 1996-2000; WB, 2000-03), as a warlock and potential love interest of the high school conjurer in an interracial storyline that was refreshingly handled as a non-issue. After playing high school students in “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and “Trippin,’” Faison graduated to higher education parts with a recurring role on the college drama "Felicity." In 2000, the 26-year-old actor returned to high school, playing an athlete on a newly integrated football team coached by Denzel Washington in the blockbuster drama, "Remember the Titans."
Portraying one of very few black doctors on primetime TV, Faison was an instant hit with his quick-witted, cocky Dr. Chris Turk, and he and Zach Braff created intense on-screen chemistry with their comedic bromance on “Scrubs.” Meanwhile, his film career carried on uninterrupted with a turn as a downtrodden actor-turned-limo driver in the entertaining kiddie comedy "Big Fat Lair" (2002), and as a party boy in "Uptown Girls" (2003.
Following voiceover parts on MTV's animated series "Clone High" (MTV, 2002-03) and the preschool series "Higgleytown Heroes" (Playhouse Disney, 2004-08), Faison was honored with several awards including two BET Comedy awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for "Scrubs."
With the conclusion of “Scrubs” Faison has appeared in “Kick-Ass 2” and in the comedy series “The Exes.”
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