Background
Wes Chatham was born October 11, 1978 and grew up in North Georgia. Chatham"s parents divorced when he was two and he spent most of his childhood with his mother, sister and brother. At the age of thirteen, Chatham moved in with his father and, without a lot of supervision and as a restless and rebellious teen, he was kicked out of high school and sent to the Give Center in Lawrenceville, Georgia, to finish school.
Career
He has appeared in films such as In the Valley of Elah, West., The Help, and The Philly Kid, and plays Castor in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Participant 1 and Participant 2. He also appeared as Staff Sergeant Sam McBride in The Unit. The Give Center was a second chance school for troubled youth, offering very small classes and a higher standard of education than public school.
While he was attending classes at the Give Center, a professional theater company out of Atlanta started a mentoring program with the school, and Chatham was chosen to write a play that was later performed by his classmates.
lieutenant was from this experience that he found his passion for the arts After graduating high school, Chatham joined the military.
He worked as an aviation firefighter on the flight deck of the United States Ship Essex, working in crash and salvage for four years. Chatham"s break into acting came just three months before his tour was finished when Denzel Washington chose his ship to shoot the movie Antwone Fisher.
Chatham was amongst selected by casting director Robi Reed while Reed in his search for authentic-looking military personnel for the movie and given his first movie-making experience, which lead to further pursuit of his lifelong dream of acting.
Following Antwone Fisher, Reed convinced Chatham to move to Hollywood and shortly thereafter cast him in his first series regular role on Showtime’s Barbershop. Chatham gained further attention when Paul Haggis cast him alongside Tommy Lee Jones as Corporal Steve Penning in In the Valley of Elah. In 2009, Chatham went on to work with Oliver Stone in West. as Frank Benedict, George West’s fraternity brother.
The following year, Chatham landed another series regular role on the hit Columbia Broadcasting System television show The Unit.
Chatham was cast as new unit team member Sergeant Sam McBride (aka Whiplash), working with David Mamet and Shawn Ryan. Chatham also starred as Brian Danielson in Brett Simmons’ Husk (2011).
Chatham portrayed Carlton Phelan, Emma Stone"s character’s brother, in the 2011 film The Help. In 2012, Chatham landed his first title role in Joel Silver’s The Philly Kid.
A fan of mixed martial arts, Chatham dove into the character of Dillion McGwire, performing all of his own stunts.
The film debuted in theaters May 2012. Following The Philly Kid, Chatham starred in This Thing With Sarah, which was accepted to the San Diego Film Festival in October 2013. In 2013 Chatham wrapped two studio films, Broken Horses (2103) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014).
In November 2015, Chatham began costarring as Amos Burton on the Syfy television series The Expanse.