Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Biography

Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw, MBE (/ˈɡuːɡuːəmˈbætərɔː/; born 21 April 1983) is a British actress. She began acting at the National Youth Music Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She 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 for Best Actress nomination. Her early television roles include  Doctor Who(2007), the NBC series Undercovers (2010), and FOX's Touch (2012). She had her breakthrough with the British period drama film Belle (2013), for which she won the BIFA for Best Actress. After roles in the films Beyond the Lights (2014) and Miss Sloane (2016), she co-starred in the Emmy Award-winning Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" (2016), for which she received acclaim. Her other film roles include Beauty and the Beast (2017), A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), Misbehaviour (2020), and Summerland (2020). She has also acted in the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show (2019) and the Disney+ series Loki (2021–present). 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).

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