Acting career Great moved to
Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and landed roles in the films
Light It Up (1999) and
Save the Last Dance (2001). The character he portrayed, Rodney, is based on Tracy Edwards, who was intended to be Dahmer's next murder victim but managed to escape from him and successfully turn him in to the authorities. For his performance in the film, Great was nominated for the
Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance. He lost the award to
Nia Vardalos for
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Great collaborated with Jacobson again in
Down in the Valley (2005). He also appeared in the 2005 television movie
Their Eyes Were Watching God and the 2009 film
The Soloist. Great earned his
MA degree at UCLA and is a PhD candidate at
New York University. Great is the creator of the Project Catalyst app, which he developed at the New York University Cinema Research Institute. Great worked as a film studies professor at the
University of North Carolina at Wilmington starting in 2019. As of 2023, he is a professor of African-American cinema studies at
San Francisco State University. Great co-edited
Black Cinema & Visual Culture: Art and Politics in the 21st Century (2023) and authored
The Black Pack: Comedy, Race, and Resistance (2025). ==Select filmography==