Cuba Gooding Jr. (born January 2, 1968) is an American actor. He became known for his breakthrough role as Tre Styles in Boyz n the Hood (1991); he would go on to appear in such films as The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Pearl Harbor (2001), and the World War II film Red Tails (2012). For his portrayal of O. J. Simpson in the FX drama series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016), Gooding received his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He co-starred in the sixth season of the FX anthology series American Horror Story, subtitled Roanoke. His other films include As Good as It Gets (1997), American Gangster (2007), Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013), and Selma (2014), playing civil rights attorney Fred Gray.