"So I started taking dance lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I was in acting classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I was also modeling on Saturdays.

For the next four years, from 1991 to 1995, she studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute while at the same time racking up professional theater credits.

She made her big-screen debut alongside Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in the highly acclaimed 1993 film Philadelphia.

For eight years, while she tried to break into major stardom, Wilson worked part-time as a teller at Deutsche Bank in order to make ends meet.

Wilson's first regular network TV role was in the short-lived series Bob Patterson (2001), a post-Seinfeld vehicle for Jason Alexander.

[7] Similarly, the Los Angeles Times said, "The only character here that's amusingly written is Bob's new assistant, Claudia (Chandra Wilson)".

[8] She also appeared on Third Watch (2001), Law & Order SVU, Sex and the City (2002), and The Sopranos (2004), and had a small role in Lone Star (1996).

Wilson also had career in theater, where she played Bonna Willis in The Good Times Are Killing Me,[9] and was featured in the Tony-nominated musical Caroline, or Change.

Upon finally leaving her job at Deutsche Bank to focus solely on her role in Grey's Anatomy, Wilson was careful not to burn any bridges.

In 2014, Wilson made a guest starring appearance on the ABC Daytime soap opera General Hospital as patient Tina Estrada.

[13] In April 2019, it was announced Wilson will make a third guest star appearance on General Hospital, but this time as Sydney Val Jean in May 2019.

[18] For the ninth season of Grey's Anatomy Wilson met with the producers and pitched the idea of featuring cyclic vomiting syndrome in an upcoming episode.