Which Ride or Die actor played Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures?

Octavia Spencer played Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures.

The 2016 biographical drama, directed by Theodore Melfi, follows Black women mathematicians working at NASA during the Space Race. Spencer portrays Dorothy Vaughan, a real mathematician who led the West Area Computing unit at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor. Vaughan became NASA’s first Black supervisor and later taught herself FORTRAN so she could work with the agency’s new IBM computers.

The film is based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s nonfiction book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race. Spencer appears alongside Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson and Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson. Those three characters are sometimes confused because the film presents their intertwined careers as one dramatic narrative, but Dorothy Vaughan is Spencer’s role.

Spencer’s performance earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The movie also brought wider attention to Vaughan’s real achievements, including her leadership during NASA’s transition from human computers to electronic computing.