Wilson Jermaine Heredia was born and raised in Brooklyn on December 2, 1971. His mother was a seamstress, his father a super. He has one sister, who is eleven years his minor. Wilson was shy in during his school years and did not get into acting until he had tried his hand at medicine and advertising. He jokes that he auditoned for his first stage role, Angel Dumott Schunard, a funky drag queen suffering from AIDS, in RENT for the 300 dollars a day. Not only did he get the money, but Wilson received a 1996 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award in the same category, an Obie award, and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award.

Since then, Wilson has appeared in several films and TV shows. He played another drag queen in 1999's Flawless, where he worked opposite former Rent cast mate Daphne Rubin-Vega. He appeared on Law & Order: SVU in the episode "Nocturne." Wilson has danced in several music videos as well. He composed the song No Es Asi for The New Americans.

Along with five other members of the original Broadway cast, Wilson appeared in 2005 movie version of Rent, directed by Chris Columbus. Wilson says that he enjoys changing his image to play Rent's cross-dressing Angel, but high heels would hurt him after twelve hours of non-stop work on set and he hated having the makeup on. While filming, he had to shave two times a day and for the big dance numbers, live off a liquid diet. Wilson completly designed Angel's big dance number - Today 4 U. He says he enjoys filming because the close up shots allow him to "cut loose" and go wild a lot more than the stage allows. Wilson was very flattered by the Team America spoof on "Rent" called "Lease" and was amazed the show was popular enough to be satired. Wilson prefomed in the RENT 10 Anniversary benefit, in which the entire orginal Broadway cast came back for one special preformance on 4/24/2006.

Wilson recently moved from New York City to LA with his girlfriend, Kate, because of career opportunities. He is the lead singer for the band Theroy, also playing the guitar and the drums. Wilson does dance, track, and martial arts to keep in shape.