Danai Gurira is an award-winning actress and playwright. She starred as General Okoye in Marvel’s Academy Award-winning blockbuster film Black Panther, winning a People’s Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a shared SAG Award. She reprised the role in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Most recently, she wrapped shooting the Netflix film Here Comes the Flood opposite Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson, the Apple film Matchbox opposite John Cena, and The Thomas Crown Affair opposite Michael B. Jordan.
On television, she is best known as Michonne on AMC’s The Walking Dead and its record-breaking spin-off The Ones Who Live, where she also served as executive producer, co-creator, and co-writer. Her other acting credits include All Eyez on Me, Mother of George, The Visitor, and Shakespeare in the Park’s Measure for Measure and Richard III.
As a playwright, she is the first African female writer to have a play on Broadway and to bring the perspective of African women to mainstream theatre. Her plays include In the Continuum, Eclipsed, The Convert, and Familiar. Commissioned by Yale Rep, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Royal Court, she is a recipient of the Sam Norkin Award, a Whiting Award, and a Hodder Fellowship.
Born in Iowa to Zimbabwean parents and raised in Zimbabwe, Gurira holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. An ambassador for Bono’s ONE campaign, she is co-founder of Almasi Arts Alliance, which expands access and opportunity for African dramatic artists. She is also founder of Love Our Girls, advocating for gender equality and policy change, a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, and a Global Citizen ambassador.