Danai Gurira

Her parents moved from Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, to the United States in 1964.

She is the youngest of four siblings; Shingai and Choni are her sisters and Tare, her brother, is a chiropractor.

Danai Jekesai Gurira (born February 14, 1978) is a Zimbabwean-American actress and playwright.

Gurira was born on February 14, 1978, in Grinnell, Iowa, to Josephine Gurira, a college librarian, and Roger Gurira, a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry at Grinnell College (both parents later joined the staff of University of Wisconsin–Platteville).

Gurira lived in Grinnell until December 1983, when at age five she and her family moved back to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, after Robert Mugabe rose to power in 1979.

She attended high school at Dominican Convent High School.

Afterward, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Gurira also earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Gurira taught playwriting and acting in Liberia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

One of her earliest notable performances occurred in 2001, as a senior at Macalester College.

Gurira performed in a production of the Ntozake Shange play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, directed and choreographed by Dale Ricardo Shields.

“She was a very intelligent, strong and independent young lady,” said Shields.

“She approached her studies, her classes, with a lot of focus, and you can see the same things in her performance in ‘Black Panther.’ ”

In May 2023 Gurira played Richard III in a Shakespeare in the Park production.

Gurira said that she began writing plays in an effort to better utilize her strengths as an actress, and to tell stories that convey ideas about strong women with whom she identifies.

As a playwright, she has been commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Royal Court.

Gurira co-wrote and co-starred in In the Continuum, first at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and later Off-Broadway, which won her an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress.

The image prompted curiosity about Liberia's fourteen-year civil wars, as well as a research trip to Liberia in 2007.

Gurira interviewed more than 30 women who had been raped, among whose daughters that had been taken by rebel fighters and turned into sex slaves.

She also spoke to female peace activists who were instrumental in ending the violence.

The names of the women in Eclipsed come from the people Gurira met during her travels, whereas the fifth character is unnamed.

In 2009, Gurira made her acting debut on Broadway in August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone playing Martha Pentecost.

In December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World AIDS Day 2011.

Sponsored by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe, the play was performed at Harare's Theatre and featured the story of two women who were navigating the world after contracting HIV.

She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne on the AMC horror drama series The Walking Dead (2012–2020, 2022-2024) and as Okoye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films, including Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).

Gurira is also the playwright of the Broadway play Eclipsed, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.

Gurira's 2012 play The Convert was premiered as a co-production between the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey.

Later that year, Gurira received the Whiting Award for an emerging playwright.

In January 2015, Familiar, a play written by Gurira and directed by Rebecca Taichman, opened at Yale Repertory Theatre.

It later premiered Off-Broadway in New York at Playwrights Horizons.

The play is about family, cultural identity, and the experience of life as a first-generation American, and Gurira has said that it was inspired in part by her family and friends.

In 2015, Lupita Nyong'o starred in Gurira's play, Eclipsed (2009), Off-Broadway at The Public Theater.

It was announced that the play would move to Broadway in 2016 at the John Golden Theatre.

It was the first play to premiere on Broadway with an all female and black cast and creative team.

The play is set in war-torn Liberia and focuses on three women who are living as sex slaves to a rebel commander, as well as one of his former wives, and a relief worker, and follows and how they deal with this difficult situation.

It starred Lupita Nyong'o, Akosua Busia, Saycon Sengbloh, Zainab Jah, and Pascale Armand and was directed by Liesl Tommy.

The inspiration for Gurira's play was a photo of Colonel Black Diamond, a female freedom fighter from Liberia, in an article in The New York Times.

"Just to see these women standing there, you know, in their jeans and ... fashionable tops and their hair is all done, and they're all carrying AK-47s, was just an image I couldn't get out of my head."

She received the 2016 Sam Norkin Award, for Eclipsed and Familiar, presented by the Drama Desk Awards, which said, in part: "Danai Gurira demonstrates great insight, range and depth, bringing a fresh new voice to American theater."

Eclipsed was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, and won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design in a Play.