Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress and author. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award. Spencer made her film debut in the 1996 drama A Time to Kill. Following a decade of brief roles in film and television, her breakthrough came in 2011 when she played a maid in 1960s Mississippi in the drama film The Help, which won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In ensuing years, she won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Ryan Coogler's biopic Fruitvale Station (2013), had a recurring role in the CBS sitcom Mom (2013–2015), and starred in the Fox drama series Red Band Society (2014–2015). Spencer's roles in 1960s period films—as Dorothy Vaughan in the biopic Hidden Figures (2016) and a cleaning woman in the fantasy The Shape of Water (2017)—earned her two consecutive nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first black actress to achieve such a feat. She has since starred in The Divergent Series (2015–16), The Shack (2017), Gifted (2017), Instant Family (2018), Luce (2019), Ma (2019), Onward (2020), and Spirited (2022). She led the Apple TV+ drama series Truth Be Told (2019–2023) and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her portrayal of Madam C. J. Walker in the Netflix miniseries Self Made (2020). She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator in 2026 for Lost Women of Alaska. As an author, Spencer created the children's book series Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective. She has published two books in the series, titled The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit (2013) and The Sweetest Heist in History (2015).