Jalen Thomas Brooks was born on October 11, 2001 in Los Angeles, California. He has one brother and was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he attended Liberty High School in Henderson, Nevada, and played basketball growing up. Brooks even had letters from college scouts as early as his freshman year in high school. He ultimately gave up basketball due to boredom and physical exhaustion. He credited The Hunger Games (2012) with piquing his interest in acting as he saw kids his age. Brooks began training in theater courses which he admits were intimidating. Instead, he later enrolled in a film acting course. He likened film acting to a team sport like basketball. Brooks studied at DreamTraxx Acting Academy in Vegas. There he found an agent and began taking auditions and landed his first television role in an episode of The CW's, Supergirl.
As an American actor, Brooks is known for his recurring roles in the short lived ABC legal drama, Rebel and The CW's Walker, a reboot of the iconic 1990s action series, Walker, Texas Ranger. He also had a brief recurring role in the TNT drama, Animal Kingdom. Brooks made his feature film debut in the 2023 horror film, Thanksgiving. Most recently, he was cast as Mateo Diaz in Max's, The Pitt.
