Justice Smith

Justice Smith was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 9, 1995. He attended the Orange County School of the Arts and began building screen credits as a teenager. His television appearances included Nickelodeon's The Thundermans and HBO's Masterclass, while his first feature role came in the 2015 adaptation of John Green's novel Paper Towns. Smith played Radar, a close friend of Quentin Jacobsen, played by Nat Wolff, during the search for Margo Roth Spiegelman. The film placed him in an ensemble with Cara Delevingne and Halston Sage, and introduced him to a theatrical audience before more prominent television work. Smith achieved a defining early role as Ezekiel "Books" Figuero in Baz Luhrmann's Netflix musical drama The Get Down. Set in the Bronx during the late 1970s, the series follows teenagers drawn to hip-hop, disco, graffiti, and punk. Books is a poet and aspiring MC whose writing helps form the Get Down Brothers. The production ran for eleven episodes between 2016 and 2017. Smith also recorded music associated with the project, including "The Get Down Brothers" tracks released through Netflix's soundtrack campaign. His performance traced Books's ties to Shaolin Fantastic, played by Shameik Moore, and Mylene Cruz, played by Herizen Guardiola. In 2019 Smith played Tim Goodman, the human lead of Pokemon Detective Pikachu, opposite Ryan Reynolds as the voice and motion-capture performer for Pikachu. Directed by Rob Letterman, the film is set in Ryme City and follows Tim as he investigates his father's disappearance with a Pikachu only he can understand. It adapted the premise of the 2016 Nintendo 3DS game Detective Pikachu. Smith later joined the Jurassic franchise in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as Franklin Webb, a former IT employee working with Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing. He reprised Franklin in Jurassic World Dominion, released in 2022 as well. Smith's work has moved between studio productions and independent projects. In 2021, he starred as Chester in Max's Genera+ion, a drama created by Zelda Barnz and Daniel Barnz. He portrayed Simon in the 2023 heist film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley; Simon is a half-elf sorcerer travelling with Chris Pine's Edgin Darvis. In 2024, Smith appeared in Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow as Owen, alongside Brigette Lundy-Paine as Maddy. The film premiered at Sundance and uses Owen's fixation on the series The Pink Opaque to explore identity, isolation, and dread.