Hill Harper protege follows actor's footsteps from Harvard to Hollywood. lands 'Great Debaters'

Jet, Dec 10, 2007 by Margena A. Christian

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Voltaire Rico Sterling will be making his movie debut this month in Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters. The movie is inspired by the life of educator Melvin B. Tolson, who forms the all-Black Wiley College debate team that competes against Harvard University and wins.

Sterling, who earned a law degree from Harvard in 2005, will celebrate his role as a debater from Paul Quinn College with his mentor, actor Hill Harper, of "CSI: New York," who also has a law degree from Harvard (JET May 22, 2006). "He's an easy person to mentor because he's receptive and at the same time he's a go-getter ... To see him in such a relatively short time score a major role in a major motion picture is phenomenal," said Harper, who authored the bestseller Letters To A Young Brother.

Sterling, who graduated from Morehouse College before law school, was so inspired by Harper's background as an actor and scholar that he introduced himself to Harper after the actor's 2001 off-Broadway performance in Blue.

"I told him I wanted to follow in his footsteps and go to Harvard Law and he encouraged me," Sterling recalled. The two kept in touch and not only did Sterling reach that goal, he was named "head class marshal"-class president-his last year.

In 2004, Sterling hosted Harvard's Live Your Dream event, which featured Harper. "The point of the event was to inspire the student body via Hill's inspiring story of pursuing your dream (s) with reckless abandon ... whatever they may be," Sterling said.

Harper recently named Sterling chairman of the board of directors for his MANifest Your Destiny Foundation, a nonprofit youth organization dedicated to empowering underserved youth.

"There's no limits to what we can do," Harper said. "He put in the effort to learn and to give back ... You give and you get and he's seeing the rewards of that."