Wesley Snipes was born in 1962 in Orlando, Florida. When he was a young boy, his family moved to the Bronx. Growing up Wesley wanted to be a dancer, until he took his first acting class that is. His passion for acting caused him to enroll at the High School for the Performing Arts, made famous as the school featured in Fame. After his mother divorced, Snipes moved back to Orlando before he could graduate from the school.

He later graduated from a Florida high school in 1980. Some of the odd jobs he held in high school included Puppet Theater, mime, and competing in musical theater competitions. After graduating high school, Snipes attended the State University of New York College at Purchase where he graduated with his Bachelors of Fine Arts in 1985. Also in 1985, Snipes married his first wife. The marriage lasted five years and produced one son.

Wesley landed his first role as an athlete in the film Wildcats (1986) that co-starred Goldie Hawn. This film quickly typecast Snipes as the tough, athletic character. Since that first film Snipes often assumes the role of tough-athletic characters.

He is a fifth degree black belt in Karate and also practices Kung Fu and the Brazilian martial art, Capoeira. Many of his characters have showcased his skills in martial arts and many also quote the literary classic, The Art of War, written by Sun Tzu. The book was written around 500 B.C.E. and is one of the leading sources on military strategy. 

Other films Snipes has starred in include Murder at 1600 (1997) co-starring Diane Lane, Demolition Man (1993) co-starring Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock, and U.S. Marshals (1998) co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey, Jr. 

In 2004, Snipes was forced to wrestle with some legal troubles when he was named as the defendant in a paternity suit in Indiana. The woman, Lanise Pettis, claims she had sex with Snipes in a crack house in Indiana that resulted in her pregnancy. The court ordered Snipes to take a paternity test and he refused. A Manhattan family court judge then ordered his arrest warrant for failing to take the paternity test. When Snipes finally took the test it was proven that he was not the father and the charges were dropped.   

That was not the end of Snipe’s legal woes. In 2005, Wesley was caught with a forged South African passport and was detained at the Johannesburg International Airport during an attempt to enter South Africa. While being interviewed Snipes said that he had applied for South African papers for his entire family. The incident caused his immigration status to be reduced to undesirable by South African Authorities.