Erik Ki La Salle (born July 23, 1962), professionally known as Eriq La Salle, is an American actor, director, writer and producer. La Salle is known for his performance as Dr. Peter Benton in the NBC medical drama ER (1994–2002; 2009) which earned him three NAACP Image Awards and nominations for a Golden Globe Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
La Salle, one of four children, was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, by his mother, Ada Haynes. He is an alumnus of Weaver High School and the Artists Collective, Inc. in Hartford. He attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division for two years as a member of Group 13 (1980–1984), then attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Graduate Acting Program in 1984.
At the time of his graduation from NYU, La Salle was cast in Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V. Soon after, he found continuous acting work on Broadway, off-Broadway, and on several daytime TV dramas including One Life to Live, where he played the reporter Mike Rivers.
In 1988, La Salle co-starred as Darryl Jenks in the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America.
In 1994, the medical drama ER premiered on NBC with La Salle starring as Dr. Peter Benton. In the fourth season of the show, he attracted headlines for requesting the interracial relationship between his character and Alex Kingston's Dr. Elizabeth Corday be written out, following thornier relationships with two previous characters played by Black women, saying: "As an African-American man, it becomes a bit offensive if the negative things are all you're showing. Because in real life, we romance and get on each other's nerves and laugh and do all the things that any other race of people do. So if the only time you show a balanced relationship is in an interracial relationship, whether it's conscious or subconscious, it sends a message I'm not comfortable with." While being interviewed by Johnnie Cochran on Johnnie Cochran Tonight, La Salle commented, "We have to take care of the message that we're sending as African-Americans or any other group of minorities, that we have the exact same type of exchanges with our mates that we get to see our White counterparts have."
La Salle held the ER role until leaving during its eighth season. He returned to ER for three episodes during its 15th and final season, including an uncredited appearance as himself in the opening of the episode "Heal Thyself" to inform the audience of the death of the show's creator Michael Crichton; he also directed the episode "The Family Man" during season 15.
In 1996, La Salle began his directorial career with the HBO made-for-TV movie Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault, starring Don Cheadle, James Earl Jones and Forest Whitaker. Shortly after that, La Salle directed the pilot for Soul Food: The Series on Showtime.
In 2002, he produced the feature film The Salton Sea. That same year, he produced, directed and starred in the movie Crazy as Hell. In 2003 he wrote, directed and starred in "Memphis", an episode of The Twilight Zone. On January 31, 2003, he made a cameo appearance in Biker Boyz as Slick Will, a mechanic. He played a Jamaican gangster in the independent film Johnny Was opposite Vinnie Jones, Samantha Mumba, Lennox Lewis, and Roger Daltrey. La Salle lived in Belfast for four weeks while filming the movie, which he supported at the premiere of the film during the 2006 American Black Film Festival in Miami.
La Salle starred in the Hallmark Channel original movie, Relative Stranger, which premiered on March 14, 2009. Also in the movie were Cicely Tyson and La Salle's former ER castmates Michael Michele (Dr. Cleo Finch) and Michael Beach (Al Boulet).
In 2010, La Salle played the United Nations Secretary General in the series finale of 24, and guest-starred in an episode of Covert Affairs in August of the same year. In 2011, he played two recurring roles: first as a Caribbean community leader who rallied against the product Rasta Monsta in HBO's How to Make it in America, the second as the neuropsychiatrist E-Mo in CBS' A Gifted Man.
He directed the 2012 Hallmark Channel movie Playing Father, and has directed multiple episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: NY, Ringer, and NBC's spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime.
La Salle's first novel, Laws of Depravity, was published in 2012.
In 2015, La Salle returned to television with a role in Under the Dome's third season, after directing one episode of the second season. He also directed an episode in the third season. He both acted in and directed episodes of CSI: Cyber. He appeared in other series, such as The Night Shift and Madam Secretary.
In 2016, La Salle directed the episode "Wingman" in the Fox series Lucifer and the episode "Black and Blue" of TNT's Murder in the First. He co-starred as Will Munson in the 2017 superhero film Logan. La Salle also directed and produced multiple episodes of Chicago P.D. throughout its many seasons.
25 to Life (3 issues, 12-Gauge Comics) (2010)