Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Early life, family and education

Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw was born on 21 April 1983 in Oxford, the daughter of Patrick Mbatha, a South African doctor, and Anne Raw, an English nurse. Her first name is a contraction of igugu lethu, which means "our treasure" in isiXhosa. 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. Her parents separated when she was a year old, and she lived mostly with her mother.

Mbatha-Raw was educated at The Henry Box School, 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. In 2001, she moved to London to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Career

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. For that role she was nominated for best actress by the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. 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. After seeing her in Hamlet, J. J. Abrams cast her in his 2010 television series Undercovers, which was cancelled after 13 episodes.

In June 2011, Mbatha-Raw was cast as the female lead on the Fox television series Touch, opposite Kiefer Sutherland. She had a supporting role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne (2011), written and directed by Tom Hanks. She also was named one of 42 "Brits to Watch" by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

2013–present

Mbatha-Raw garnered praise for her performance in Belle (2013), portraying Dido Elizabeth Belle, a mixed-race woman raised as a gentlewoman in 18th-century England. She won the Best Actress award and was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards. She was also nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actress. 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. Later that year, Mbatha-Raw starred as a pop singer in the romantic drama Beyond the Lights, for which she earned a Best Actress nomination at the 2014 Gotham Awards.

In 2015, she was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award and had a supporting role in the space opera Jupiter Ascending. She also played Prema Mutiso, the wife of a forensic neuropathologist who first discovered extensive brain damage in NFL players due to concussions, in the biopic Concussion alongside Will Smith. On stage, she portrayed the title role in Jessica Swale's play Nell Gwynn, about the actress who became the mistress of King Charles II of England; it ran at Shakespeare's Globe from 19 September to 17 October 2015. She was nominated for an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance.

In 2016, Mbatha-Raw was one of the two leads in "San Junipero", an episode of Black Mirror, and played a major supporting role in Miss Sloane, a drama about Washington lobbyists starring Jessica Chastain. In 2016, she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones, 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.

Mbatha-Raw was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours, for services to drama.

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. In 2018, she starred in a number of science fiction features, including A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay, and The Cloverfield Paradox.

She played Mary Seacole in a biopic of her life proposed in 2019 by Racing Green Pictures and producer Billy Peterson, intended for release in 2020.

In 2021 and 2023, she played Judge Ravonna Renslayer in the Disney+ series Loki. In 2022 and 2025, she starred in the first two seasons of the Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Surface, on which she also served as an executive producer.

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. In 2021, she was one of the announcers of the Refugee Paralympic team. In November 2021, Mbatha-Raw was cast in the romantic film Nobody's Heart with Edgar Ramírez, directed by Isabel Coixet.

In 2024, she played the female lead in the Netflix action film Lift opposite Kevin Hart. The same year, it was announced that Mbatha-Raw would return to the Doctor Who universe as a new character in the spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea.

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.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Radio

Awards and nominations

References

References

1. Bernstein, Abbie. (30 May 2012). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw On 'Touch' Interview – EXCLUSIVE". buzzymag.
2. (3 February 2016). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw Attempts to Put Together Mr. Potato Head". Vanity Fair.
3. (15 May 2014). "Speed Date: ''Belles'' Breakout Gugu Mbatha-Raw Fancies Nina Simone and ''The Neverending Story''". [[Yahoo!]].
4. ''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''; at ancestry.com
5. Elber, Lynn. (22 September 2010). "''Undercovers'' colorful mission: bring change to TV".
6. Truffaut-Wong, Olivia. (6 April 2016). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw Is Changing Hollywood".
7. (3 February 2022). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Accents, the Idea of Legacy & 'The Girl Before'".
8. (26 July 2022). "With 'Surface,' Gugu Mbatha-Raw Steps Into New Territory". [[The New York Times]].
9. (16 June 2014). "Belle of the movie world enjoys visit to home town + Videos".
10. "Gugu Mbatha-Raw: Big Questions".
11. Gardner, Lyn. (15 September 2005). "Romeo and Juliet – Royal Exchange, Manchester". The Guardian.
12. Dehn, Georgia. (28 May 2009). "Hamlet with Jude Law at Wyndham's Theatre: Gugu Mbatha-Raw is mad for it". The Telegraph.
13. John, Emma. (31 May 2009). "Jude, don't make her mad".
14. Oldenburg, Ann. (4 November 2010). "NBC cancels 'Undercovers' after 13 episodes". USA Today.
15. Carter, Bill. (4 November 2010). "NBC Cancels 'Undercovers'". [[The New York Times]].
16. Andreeva, Nellie. (10 June 2011). "'Undercovers' Star Gugu Mbatha-Raw Set As Female Lead In Fox's Pilot 'Touch'". [[Deadline Hollywood]].
17. [http://www.starpulse.com/Actresses/Mbatha-Raw,_Gugu/gallery/AES-040868 Profile] {{Webarchive. link. (4 June 2016 , starpulse.com; accessed 1 March 2015.)
18. "42 Brits to Watch announced".
19. califor123. (13 June 2014). "Belle (2013)".
20. Obenson, Tambay A.. "Gugu Mbatha-Raw Will Be "Belle" In Slavery Pic Based On Mixed-Race Woman Raised In Aristocratic Family". Indiewire.
21. (24 February 2021). "British actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw named latest UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador".
22. (23 October 2014). "2014 Gotham Award Nominations Revealed".
23. Zuckerman, Esther. "Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller among BAFTA Rising Star nominees".
24. (7 September 2014). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars in Beyond the Light, premiering at TIFF". The Toronto Star.
25. Rooney, David. (3 July 2015). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw to Return to London Stage".
26. (2 November 2015). "Evening Standard Theatre Awards: Full list of nominees".
27. (7 October 2016). "'Black Mirror' Season 3 Trailer: "No One Is This Happy'". Deadline.
28. Monji, Jana. (12 November 2016). "AFI FEST 2016: "MISS SLOANE"". rogerebert.com.
29. Sneider, Jeff. (7 January 2015). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw to Star Opposite Matthew McConaughey in Gary Ross' 'Free State of Jones' (Exclusive)".
30. {{London Gazette. (17 June 2017)
31. Kroll, Justin. (13 April 2015). "'Beyond the Lights' Star Gugu Mbatha-Raw Joins 'Beauty and the Beast' (EXCLUSIVE)".
32. Lang, Brent. (24 June 2019). "Racing Green Pictures to Launch With Gugu Mbatha-Raw Historical Drama 'Seacole'".
33. (12 February 2020). "Casting News: Gugu Mbatha-Raw Joins Tom Hiddleston in 'Loki' TV Series".
34. Whitbrook, James. (5 April 2021). "Marvel Secrets in the New Loki Trailer: The Avengers, Time-Keepers, and More".
35. (30 November 2020). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw To Star In Apple TV+ Series 'Surface' From Veronica West, Hello Sunshine & Apple Studios".
36. Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "IPC announces six athletes to compete for the Refugee Paralympic Team at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games".
37. Goldbart, Max. (2 November 2021). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Edgar Ramírez To Star In Isabel Coixet's 'Nobody's Heart' – AFM". Deadline Hollywood.
38. Zacharek, Stephanie. (2024-01-12). "Netflix's Kevin Hart Vehicle 'Lift' Is Absurd—But Still Kind of Fun".
39. (July 26, 2024). "New Whoniverse Spin-Off 'The War Between The Land And The Sea' announced at San Diego Comic-Con". [[BBC Studios]].
40. (August 3, 2022). "Gugu Mbatha-Raw Finds Catharsis Through Portraiture".
41. (July 9, 2024). "Sam Worthington And Gugu Mbatha-Raw Join Thriller 'Fuze'".
42. (September 23, 2024). "Guy Pearce, Hannah Waddingham, Kaya Scodelario, Gugu Mbatha-Raw & More Join Keira Knightley In Netflix Thriller ''The Woman In Cabin 10''".
43. (4 December 2024). "Filming begins on Sky Snowed-In thriller Inheritance".