Danai Gurira joins cast of Black Panther movie
Star of the The Walking Dead, Danai Gurira has landed a role in the Marvel Comics superhero movie, Black Panther, set to be released in July 2018. The Zimbabwean actress joins other famous Hollywood stars including Kenyan Oscar-winning actress, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman.
Gurira will play the role of Okoye in the movie while Nyong’o will play Nakia
Gurira will play the role of Okoye in the movie while Nyong’o will play Nakia. Jordan will feature as Erik Killmonger and Boseman will reprise his titular role, also known as T’Challa, the first black superhero in mainstream comics in America.
Black Panther is a film about a fictional African country, Wakanda. It will be directed by Ryan Coogler whose 2015 film, Creed was well received. Coogler will be reuniting with his Creed leading man, Jordan, in Black Panther.
The trailblazing Zimbabwean actress
Playwright and actress, Danai Gurira, was born to Zimbabwean parents in Iowa, United States, on 14 February 1978. At age five, she relocated with her family to Harare, Zimbabwe, after the country gained independence. After high school, Gurira returned to the United States to continue her education. She holds an MFA in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
As an actress, she is best known as Michonne on the popular TV series, The Walking Dead. She played rapper, Tupac Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur in the yet to be released biopic of the late rapper, All Eyez on Me.
Gurira has written several plays, including, Eclipsed, which follows the lives of five women struggling for survival during the Liberian civil war. The play, featuring an all-black cast (including Nyong’o) and creative crew, received six nominations for the 70th Tony Awards, including a nomination for Best Play.
The only female nominee for Best Play
Playwright and star of The Walking Dead, Danai Gurira, is a Zimbabwean-American, or Zimerican, as she calls herself. One of her plays, ‘Eclipsed’, has garnered six nominations for the 70th Tony Awards, including a nomination for Best Play. Other plays in this category are Stephen Karam’s ‘The Humans’, Mike Bartlett’s ‘King Charles III’, Florian Zeller’s ‘The Father’ and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ‘Hamilton’, which scored a record 16 nominations. It is Gurira’s first Tony nomination and she happens to be the only female nominee in this category. This is one of several reasons she is already a winner regardless of the outcome of the award ceremony
Garnered several awards for the play
In addition to the nomination for Gurira, ‘Eclipsed’, also, got several other nominations for its cast and crew. Lupita Nyong’o’ was nominated for Best Actress in a Play, Saycon Sengbloh and Pascale Armand for Best Featured Actress in a Play, Clint Ramos for Best Costume Design and Liesl Tommy for Best Direction of a Play. A little detail that might interest African women is that all cast and creative team members of the play are black women, a feat unprecedented on Broadway. Hopefully, some of them will win a Tony.
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