Gugu Mbatha-Raw
English actress (born 1983) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw, MBE (/ˈɡuːɡuː əmˈbætərɔː/;[1][2] born 21 April 1983) is an English actress. She began acting at the National Youth Music Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and gained acclaim for her roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Octavia in Anthony and Cleopatra in 2005 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. She made her West End and Broadway debut portraying Ophelia in Hamlet in 2009. For her role as the titular character in Jessica Swale's 2015 play Nell Gwynn, she received an Evening Standard Theatre Award nomination.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Mbatha-Raw in 2013 | |
| Born | Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw 21 April 1983 Oxford, England |
| Education | Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (BA) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 2001–present |
She took early roles in television acting in Doctor Who (2007), Undercovers (2010), and Touch (2012). She earned acclaim for her leading film roles in Belle (2013), and Beyond the Lights (2014) and took supporting roles in Miss Sloane (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), and Misbehaviour (2020). She took leading roles in the Netflix film Black Mirror: San Junipero (2016) and the Apple TV+ drama series Surface (2022–) and acted in The Morning Show (2019), and the Disney+ series Loki (2021–2023).
In 2017, Mbatha-Raw was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama. In February 2021, Mbatha-Raw was appointed a global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Early life, family and education
Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw was born on 21 April 1983[3][4][5] in Oxford, the daughter of Patrick Mbatha, a South African doctor, and Anne Raw, an English nurse.[6] Her first name is a contraction of igugu lethu, which means "our treasure" in isiZulu. As a student, her father was a member of the African National Congress an activist opposing apartheid in South Africa, and had to flee as a result.[7] Her parents separated when she was a year old, and she lived mostly with her mother.[8]
Mbatha-Raw was educated at The Henry Box School,[9] a state comprehensive school in the market town of Witney in Oxfordshire, where she was raised.
Interested in acting, dance, and musical theatre from a young age, she participated in the National Youth Theatre. Her credits include dancing at the Judy Tompsett School of Dance, now known as the Marsh Tompsett School of Dance.[10] In 2001, she moved to London to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[8]
Career
Summarize
Perspective
Early career
Mbatha-Raw appeared as Octavia in Antony and Cleopatra in 2005 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and had one of her early dramatic breakthroughs later that year at the Royal Exchange in Romeo and Juliet, in which she starred opposite Andrew Garfield. [11] For that role she was nominated for best actress by the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards.[12] She next had minor roles on the television series Bad Girls (2006) and Marple (2007) before taking on a recurring role on Doctor Who in 2007. She played Tish Jones, the sister of Martha Jones, companion to the Tenth Doctor, in four episodes, most prominently in "The Lazarus Experiment". In 2009, Mbatha-Raw was cast as Ophelia in Hamlet on London's West End and Broadway, opposite Jude Law as Prince Hamlet.[13] After seeing her in Hamlet, J. J. Abrams cast her in his 2010 television series Undercovers, which was cancelled after 13 episodes.[14][15]
In June 2011, Mbatha-Raw was cast as the female lead on the Fox television series Touch, opposite Kiefer Sutherland.[16] She had a supporting role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne (2011), written and directed by Tom Hanks.[17] She also was named one of 42 "Brits to Watch" by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.[18]
2013–present
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Mbatha-Raw garnered praise for her performance in Amma Asante's film Belle (2013), playing the eponymous historical character Dido Elizabeth Belle, a mixed-race woman raised as a gentlewoman in her paternal uncle Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's household in 18th-century England.[19][20]
The film debuted at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures for release in 2014. Mbatha-Raw was nominated for numerous awards for her performance, including two British Independent Film Awards – Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film, which she won, and Most Promising Newcomer. She was also nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actress.[citation needed] In 2014, she spoke at the United Nations headquarters when the film was screened in honor of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.[21]
Mbatha-Raw starred as a pop singer in the romantic drama Beyond the Lights, which debuted at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 2014 Gotham Awards.[22] She also was recognized in 2014 by Elle's Women in Hollywood Awards, honoring women for outstanding achievements in film. The awards span all aspects of the motion picture industry, including acting, directing and producing.[23] In 2015, she was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award and had a supporting role in the space opera Jupiter Ascending.[24]
On 3 July 2015, Mbatha-Raw was annnounced as the first to play the title role in Jessica Swale's play Nell Gwynn, about the actress who became the mistress of King Charles II of England; it premiered at Shakespeare's Globe from 19 September to 17 October 2015.[25] She was nominated for an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance.[26]
Also in 2015, she appeared in the biopic Concussion, starring Will Smith. It is the story of Bennet Omalu, the forensic neuropathologist who first discovered extensive brain damage in NFL players due to concussions, and tried to put a stop to practices that contributed to the condition. She played Prema Mutiso, Bennet Omalu's wife.[27] The film premiered at the 2015 AFI Festival.[citation needed]
Mbatha-Raw starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones (2016), directed by Gary Ross. The film is a biopic of farmer Newton Knight, a resister of the Confederacy. She played Knight's common-law wife, Rachel, a freedwoman he had a family with after the Civil War.[28]
In 2016, Mbatha-Raw was one of the two leads in "San Junipero", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror,[29] and played a major supporting role in Miss Sloane, a drama about Washington lobbyists starring Jessica Chastain. The film premiered at the AFI Film Festival in November.[30]
Gina Prince-Bythewood announced in March 2016 that Mbatha-Raw would star in her adaptation of Roxane Gay's novel An Untamed State.[31]
Mbatha-Raw was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours, for services to drama.[32]
In 2017, she played Plumette in the live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon and co-starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.[33]
In 2018, she starred in a number of science fiction features, including A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay, and The Cloverfield Paradox. The latter film made history with a marketing campaign that saw it released on the streaming platform Netflix directly after it was advertised worldwide during the 2018 Super Bowl.[citation needed]
In February 2020, she was announced to play Judge Ravonna Renslayer in the Disney+ series Loki[34][35] Also in 2020, she was cast to star in the Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Surface, on which she also serves as an executive producer.[36] The series was created by Veronica West and premiered on 29 July 2022.[8] On 2 December 2022, the series was renewed for a second season.[37]
In 2021, Mbatha-Raw was appointed a global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Since 2018, she has visited Burundian and Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Uganda as well as taken part in UNHCR's EveryOneCounts and Films of Hope campaigns.[21] In June 2021, she helped announce the Refugee Paralympic team, including Alia Issa who competed in the club throw.[38] In November 2021, Mbatha-Raw was cast in the romantic film Nobody's Heart with Edgar Ramírez, directed by Isabel Coixet.[39]
In April 2022, she was set to play the female lead in the Netflix action film Lift co-starring Kevin Hart.[40]
In July 2024, it was announced that Mbatha-Raw will return to the Doctor Who universe as a new character in the spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea.[41]
Personal life
Mbatha-Raw has "always loved art", and considered becoming an artist instead of an actor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she painted portraits of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, using painting supplies that her Concussion co-star Will Smith gave her in 2016. She also paints portraits of her costars in film and television; she says that her portrait of actor Kevin Hart hangs in his office at his production company.[42]
Acting credits
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Straightheads | Young PA | |
| 2011 | Larry Crowne | Talia | |
| 2013 | Odd Thomas | Viola Peabody | |
| Belle | Dido Elizabeth Belle | ||
| 2014 | Beyond the Lights | Noni Jean | |
| 2015 | Jupiter Ascending | Famulus | |
| Concussion | Prema Mutiso | ||
| 2016 | Free State of Jones | Rachel Knight | |
| The Whole Truth | Janelle Brady | ||
| Miss Sloane | Esme Manucharian | ||
| 2017 | Beauty and the Beast | Plumette | |
| 2018 | The Cloverfield Paradox | Ava Hamilton | |
| Irreplaceable You | Abbie | ||
| A Wrinkle in Time | Dr. Kate Murry | ||
| Fast Color | Ruth | ||
| Farming | Ms. Dapo | ||
| 2019 | Motherless Brooklyn | Laura Rose | |
| 2020 | Come Away | Adult Alice | |
| Misbehaviour | Jennifer Hosten | ||
| Summerland | Vera | ||
| 2024 | Lift | Abby | |
| TBA | Fuze | TBA | Filming[43] |
| The Woman in Cabin 10 | TBA | Filming[44] |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Holby City | Collette Hill | Episode: "Overload" |
| 2005 | Walk Away and I Stumble | Nurse | Television film |
| 2006 | Vital Signs | Eve | Recurring role; 5 episodes |
| Bad Girls | Fidelity Saunders | 2 episodes | |
| Spooks | Jenny | Guest cast (series 5) | |
| 2007 | Doctor Who | Tish Jones | 4 episodes |
| Agatha Christie's Marple | Tina Argyle | Episode: "Ordeal by Innocence" | |
| 2008 | Lost in Austen | Piranha | 2 episodes |
| Bonekickers | Viv Davis | Main role; 6 episodes | |
| Trial & Retribution | Jenny Miller | Episode: "The Box: Part 1" | |
| 2009 | Fallout | Shanice Roberts | Television film |
| 2010, 2012 | Undercovers | Samantha Bloom | Main role; 13 episodes |
| 2012 | Touch | Clea Hopkins | Main role (season 1); 13 episodes |
| 2016, 2019 | Easy | Sophie | 2 episodes |
| 2016 | Black Mirror | Kelly | Episode: "San Junipero" |
| 2019 | The Morning Show | Hannah Shoenfeld | Main role (season 1); 10 episodes |
| The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance | Seladon (voice) | Main role; 9 episodes | |
| 2021–2023 | Loki | Judge Ravonna Lexus Renslayer / Rebecca Tourminet | 9 episodes |
| 2021 | The Girl Before | Jane | 4 episodes |
| 2022–present | Surface | Sophie Ellis/Tess Caldwell | Lead role; 16 episodes |
| 2025 | The War Between the Land and the Sea | TBA | Lead role; 5 episodes[41] |
| TBA | Inheritance | Claudia | Lead role; Executive producer. Filming[45] |
Theatre
| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Into the Woods | Cinderella's Mother (u/s Rapunzel) | National Youth Music Theatre |
| 2005 | Antony and Cleopatra | Iras/Octavia | Royal Exchange in Manchester |
| Romeo and Juliet | Juliet Capulet | Royal Exchange in Manchester | |
| 2007 | Big White Fog | Wanda Mason | Almeida Theatre, West End |
| 2008 | Gethsemane | Monique | National Theatre |
| 2009–10 | Hamlet | Ophelia | Donmar West End and Broadway |
| 2015 | Nell Gwynn | Nell Gwynn | Shakespeare's Globe |
Radio
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Living with the Enemy | Sophie/Various | BBC Radio 4 |
| 2009 | Choice of Straws | Michelle | BBC Radio 4 |
Awards and nominations
References
External links
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