TIJUANA RICKS

Born and raised in Gramercy, Louisiana, Tijuana received her BA in Acting and Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis where she began acting as a member of the sketch comedy troupe, Kaktabülz. She then went on to get her MFA in Acting from the Yale School of Drama, where she was awarded the Herschel Williams Prize for Outstanding Ability in Acting and was a recipient of the Rebecca West Scholarship. As an actor, Tijuana can be seen in over 90 episodes of television, most notably as Thembi Wallace in the Netflix Marvel Universe shows Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and in 4 seasons of Showtime's Billons as Attorney Tonelle "T" Burton. As a writer, Tijuana’s script Left Back, was selected as a finalist for the NYTVF's Drama Pilot Competition and her pilot Ashes was a finalist in a development competition for One X Studios. In 2019, she was selected as a semi-finalist for the inaugural Shondaland! Women Directing Mentorship. Tijuana's short films, The Vampire Leland and Narrator Syndrome, have screened at multiple Oscar-qualifying festivals around the country including the St. Louis International Film Festival, SeriesFest, NYTVF and the Woods Hole Film Festival. She directed the web series All Souls, that was a nominee from best Short at the Chicago Southland International Festival, won the Viewers’ Choice Award on Flickfair, and was a Gold Award Winner at the 2020 DC Web Fest. Tijuana recently co-wrote, directed, and starred in the political web comedy, The Corps, an official selection for the inaugural American Black Film Festival Comedy Festival and the 2021 Urbanworld Film Festival. She also co-directed the comedy web series Make America Bake Again which is now available on YouTube. Tijuana is a recipient of the Ryan Murphy HALF initiative Directing Mentorship 2022.

​