Before the music · 11 verified credits

Acting Career

Drake was an actor before he was a rapper. Eight years on Degrassi: The Next Generationas Jimmy Brooks — including the wheelchair arc that ran from 2004 through 2008 — is the foundational credit of his entire on-screen career and the source of references that show up in his lyrics for the next two decades. This page tracks his acting, cameos, and the executive-producer credits DreamCrew has put together since — framed factually, because EP credits are typically financier-and-platform roles, not writers'-room ones.

Jimmy Brooks · The wheelchair arc

2001 - 2013

2001-08Cast as Jimmy Brooks weeks before the series premiere.
2001-10-14Series premieres on CTV; Jimmy is introduced as the rich-kid basketball star.
2004Season 4 two-parter 'Time Stands Still': Jimmy is shot in the school-shooting plotline; wheelchair arc begins.
2005-2008Wheelchair-storyline seasons 5-8: Jimmy pivots to music, art, and basketball-coaching B-plots — paralleling Drake's own move into recording.
2009Drake exits as a regular after season 8 and returns for guest spots in season 9 as 'So Far Gone' breaks.
2013Final on-screen reprise as Jimmy Brooks in the 'Class of 2013' retrospective.

On screen · 8

Acting Roles & Cameos

Roles where Drake appeared on camera as a character — from Jimmy Brooks through SNL hosting weeks.

ActingCTV (Canada) / The N / TeenNick (US)145 episodes

Degrassi: The Next Generation

as Jimmy Brooks

Drake — credited as Aubrey Graham — was cast as Jimmy Brooks in August 2001, weeks before the series premiered on October 14, 2001. Jimmy started as the cocky, basketball-obsessed rich kid of Degrassi Community School, but the role widened into one of the show's defining dramatic arcs. In the season 4 two-parter 'Time Stands Still' (2004), Jimmy was shot in a school-shooting plotline modeled on the Columbine response in Canadian teen TV; the wheelchair arc that followed became one of the most-discussed storylines in Degrassi's twenty-year run and forced the actor into a sustained dramatic register that is unusual for a children's-network show. Drake was a series regular for seasons 1-8, appeared as a guest in season 9 (2009), and exited as Jimmy as his music career broke commercially with the So Far Gone mixtape. The role is referenced repeatedly in his music — including 'Successful,' 'Started From the Bottom,' 'Thank Me Now,' and the framing of Houstatlantavegas as the wrap-up of the actor-to-rapper transition — and it remains the single longest acting credit of his career.

Notable episodes

Season 1, Episode 1 — 'Mother and Child Reunion (Part 1)' (2001-10-14, pilot)
Season 4, Episodes 7-8 — 'Time Stands Still, Parts 1 & 2' (2004, school-shooting arc)
Season 8, Episode 11 — 'Jane Says (Part 1)' (final regular-cast season)
Season 9 — guest return as Jimmy Brooks (2009)

Awards & nominations

Young Artist Award — Best Performance in a TV Drama Series, Recurring Young Actor (nominated, 2002)
Young Artist Award — Best Ensemble in a TV Series (2005, with Degrassi cast)
Multiple Canadian Screen / Gemini Award nominations as part of the Degrassi: The Next Generation ensemble during his run

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Year

2001-2009

ActingMGM

Charlie Bartlett

as Student (uncredited)

Drake appears in a small role in 'Charlie Bartlett,' Jon Poll's 2007 high-school comedy starring Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey Jr. The film was released theatrically on February 22, 2008. Drake's part is small and sometimes listed as uncredited on home-video releases, but he is identified in the Wikipedia filmography section for his acting career and in retrospective profiles as an example of the kind of feature work he was taking during the back half of his Degrassi run. It is one of his earliest non-Degrassi screen credits and sits chronologically just before the So Far Gone mixtape that ultimately pulled him out of acting full-time.

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Year

2007

CameoParamount Pictures

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

as Cameo (uncredited)

Drake appears in a brief uncredited cameo in Adam McKay's 'Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,' released December 18, 2013, in the U.S. The cameo sits inside the news-desk parody scene during the film's third-act ensemble sequence and is part of a long roster of musician and athlete walk-ons that the production assembled. The credit is minor in his filmography but is one of his first feature-film appearances after exiting Degrassi as a regular, and is the type of role — celebrity-as-celebrity — that defined most of his on-screen presence in the mid-2010s as his music career took over scheduling. The cameo is documented on the film's IMDb cast list and in the Drake Wikipedia filmography table.

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Year

2013

ActingMTV Canada / TeenNick1 episode

Degrassi: The Next Generation — 'The Class of 2013' special

as Jimmy Brooks (guest return)

When the original 'Degrassi: The Next Generation' graduating class was retired in 2013, the show's producers assembled a 'Class of 2013' retrospective and reunion special. Drake recorded a video appearance reprising Jimmy Brooks for the special, marking his last on-screen reprisal of the role after his season-9 guest spot in 2009. The credit is small but is the bookend on the Degrassi run, and it is the source most commonly cited when Drake himself dates 'when I stopped being an actor' in interviews — he tends to point at the 2013 reunion, not the 2009 guest return, as the formal end of the Jimmy Brooks era.

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Year

2013

ActingNBC1 episode

Saturday Night Live (host & musical guest)

as Host and Musical Guest

Drake hosted and served as musical guest on the same episode of Saturday Night Live that aired January 18, 2014 (season 39, episode 12). The night produced 'Most Successful Bar Mitzvah Ever,' a recurring-touchstone sketch that leaned on his own Jewish-Canadian background, plus a Katt Williams parody and a 'Black History Month: Drake's Family Tree' filmed piece. Hosting SNL is treated here as an acting credit rather than a music appearance because it required a full week of sketch performance across multiple characters, not just a musical-guest performance. The episode is widely cited in Drake's filmography and is the entry through which mainstream U.S. comedy audiences first met the post-Degrassi Drake as a comedic performer.

Notable episodes

Season 39, Episode 12 — host & musical guest (2014-01-18)

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Year

2014

CameoNBC

Saturday Night Live (musical guest, post-Degrassi return)

as Musical Guest (acting in sketches)

Beyond his January 2014 host episode, Drake also appeared as musical guest on the May 10, 2014 SNL season finale hosted by Andy Samberg (season 39, episode 21). He performed 'Trophies' and 'Started From the Bottom' / 'Worst Behavior' but also took small character spots in the episode's monologue and one sketch, which is why the appearance is listed here as a sketch-cameo rather than a pure music booking. This is the entry that lets the 2014 SNL year on Drake's resume read accurately — two separate appearances three and a half months apart, not one combined credit.

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Year

2014

ActingNBC1 episode

Saturday Night Live (second hosting appearance)

as Host and Musical Guest

Drake's second double-duty SNL appearance aired May 14, 2016 (season 41, episode 21) — he again hosted and served as musical guest in the same night. The episode arrived two and a half weeks after 'Views' was released on April 29, 2016, and effectively functioned as a national-TV launch event for the album cycle. Sketches included 'Drake's Beef,' a deli-counter recurring-character bit that played on his public reputation as a feuding rapper, and a Black Jeopardy spot. Treating SNL hosting as an acting credit — rather than a musical-guest spot — is consistent with how Wikipedia's Drake filmography records the appearance: SNL host weeks are full ensemble-comedy performances, not music bookings.

Notable episodes

Season 41, Episode 21 — host & musical guest (2016-05-14)

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Year

2016

ActingHero Artists / Screen Media

Spinning Gold

as Cesar Monroes (small speaking role)

'Spinning Gold' is Timothy Scott Bogart's biopic about his father Neil Bogart, the founder of Casablanca Records, and was released theatrically in the United States on March 31, 2023. Drake appears in the film in a small speaking role as Cesar Monroes, a fictionalized New York club owner from the early-1970s Buddah Records / Casablanca era. The role is brief but credited — Drake's name is on the IMDb cast list and the Wikipedia article for the film — and it is one of his only narrative-feature speaking parts since 'Charlie Bartlett' (2007). This entry is included here, in contrast to a long-rumored Lou Reed cameo, because the Cesar Monroes credit is the one that is actually documented in trade-press coverage and on the film's official cast listings.

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Year

2023

Behind the scenes · 3

Executive Producing

DreamCrew credits where Drake is attached as executive producer. These are most accurately read as financier-and-platform roles unless otherwise documented.

Executive ProducerNetflix

The Carter Effect

as Executive Producer

'The Carter Effect' is a feature documentary directed by Sean Menard about Vince Carter's tenure with the Toronto Raptors and the broader effect Carter's arrival had on basketball culture in Canada. Drake is credited as an executive producer alongside LeBron James and Maverick Carter through SpringHill Entertainment and Drake's DreamCrew. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2017, and was released on Netflix later that year. Drake also appears on camera as an interview subject, speaking about Carter's influence on his own basketball fandom and on Toronto's late-1990s identity. The executive-producer credit here should be read as a financing-and-platform role — DreamCrew and SpringHill brought the project to Netflix — and as an on-camera contribution rather than a directorial one, which is the standard pattern across Drake's later EP credits.

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Year

2017

Executive ProducerNetflix30 episodes

Top Boy (Netflix revival)

as Executive Producer

Channel 4 originally aired 'Top Boy' across two short series in 2011 and 2013 before cancelling it. Drake became publicly attached to the property after watching it on YouTube; he championed a revival, and his production company DreamCrew (with Adel 'Future' Nur) co-produced the Netflix continuation that premiered September 13, 2019, as 'Top Boy.' Three Netflix-era seasons followed through 2022, with the final season released September 7, 2023. Drake's credit is executive producer; the day-to-day creative leadership remained with creator Ronan Bennett and stars Ashley Walters (Dushane) and Kane 'Kano' Robinson (Sully). His role is most accurately framed as the financier and global-platform broker who put the show in front of Netflix — a textbook case of an executive-producer credit that is investor- and access-led rather than writers'-room-led — and as a public advocate who positioned the East London drama for a U.S. and global audience.

Notable episodes

Series 3 (Netflix Season 1) Episode 1 — 'Drug Related' (2019-09-13)
Final Season — released 2023-09-07 on Netflix

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Year

2019-2023

Executive ProducerHBO

Euphoria

as Executive Producer

'Euphoria,' created by Sam Levinson and adapted from an Israeli series of the same name, premiered on HBO on June 16, 2019. Drake and Adel 'Future' Nur are credited as executive producers through DreamCrew alongside A24, Levinson, Ravi Nandan, Kevin Turen, Hadas Mozes Lichtenstein, Ron Leshem, Daphna Levin, Yoram Mokady, and Tmira Yardeni. Drake's executive-producer credit on Euphoria — like Top Boy — is generally understood as a financing-and-prestige credit; Levinson is the show's sole writer for most episodes and runs the room. Drake has spoken in interviews about being a fan of the source material and pushing DreamCrew toward television rather than only film. The show has run two regular seasons (2019, 2022) plus two pandemic-era special episodes (December 2020 and January 2021); a third season is in production at HBO as of the most recent public reporting. Drake is not credited as a writer on any episode.

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Year

2019-present

Note · Only credits that could be verified against IMDb, Wikipedia, or trade press are listed here. "Executive producer" is described factually, because in television it can mean a financier or access broker rather than an active creative lead. Cross-links: /business (DreamCrew as a company), /timeline (overlap with the music timeline), /about.