Kodjoe was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Ursula, a German psychologist, and Eric Kodjoe, a Ghanaian physician. He was born Jewish through his mother and maternal grandmother, and is a member of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Kodjoe is fluent in German, French, English and Spanish. He has a brother named Patrick and a sister named Nadja.

As a teenager, Boris was extremely focused on building a tennis career. He was accepted to Virgina Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia through a tennis scholarship. However, a back injury prevented him from pursuing this dream.

After modeling came into the picture, Boris moved to America where he learned English and worked with a voice coach to lose his accent. He modeled for many high-profile clothing lines such as Gap and Ralph Lauren. Named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by People Magazine in 2002.

Near the end of his modeling days, Boris discovered a love for acting, and made his movie debut in the hit film "Love and Basketball", starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps. He appeared in such shows as "The Steve Harvey Show", "Boston Public", and "Eve".

Boris received one of his biggest rolls when he was cast as Damon Carter on the hit series "Soul Food" based on the film released in 1997 about 3 Black sisters (Vanessa Williams, Nia Long and Vivica A. Fox), their families, and the Sunday dinners that keep them all together. It was on the set of "Soul Food" that Boris met his fiance Nicole Ari Parker. (Parker plays Teri on "Soul Food", an uptight lawyer, Kodjoe played Damon, a delivery man with whom Teri fell in love, but was embarrassed to be seen with due to their differences in status.)

Boris and Nicole co-starred together in the film "Brown Sugar" (starring Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan) and again as a divorced and re-married couple on the UPN show "Second Time Around"(2004). The two welcomed the birth of their first child in March 2005. They got married on May 21, 2005. They now have a second child, a son named Nicolas Neruda Kodjoe born in October of 2006.