41 Facts About Danai Gurira

Danai Jekesai Gurira is a Zimbabwean-American actress, playwright, and activist.

Danai Gurira is known for her starring roles as Michonne in the AMC horror drama franchise The Walking Dead and Okoye in the Marvel Black Panther and Avengers films.

Danai Gurira's films have grossed $6.98 billion dollars, making her the sixth highest-grossing actress of all time.

Danai Gurira's parents moved from Southern Rhodesia, which is Zimbabwe, to the United States in 1964.

Danai Gurira is the youngest of four siblings; Shingai and Choni are her sisters and Tare, her brother.

Danai 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.

Danai Gurira attended high school at Dominican Convent High School.

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

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

Danai 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.

Danai 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.

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

Later that year, Danai Gurira received the Whiting Award for an emerging playwright and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing in 2013.

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

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

In May 2023 Danai Gurira played Richard III in a Shakespeare in the Park production for which she received a nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Play for the 2022 Audelco Awards.

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

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

Danai Gurira spoke to female peace activists who were instrumental in ending the violence.

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

Danai Gurira starred in the drama film The Visitor in 2007, for which she won Method Fest Independent Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2013, Danai Gurira played a lead role in director Andrew Dosunmu's independent drama film Mother of George, which premiered at 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Danai Gurira received critical acclaim for her performance as a Nigerian woman struggling to live in the United States.

In June 2013, Danai Gurira won the Jean-Claude Gahd Dam award at the 2013 Guys Choice Awards.

Danai Gurira played rapper Tupac Shakur's mother, Afeni Shakur, in All Eyez on Me, a 2017 biopic about the rap star.

In March 2012, AMC announced on a live broadcast that Danai Gurira would join the cast of their horror-drama series The Walking Dead, the highest rated series in cable television history, in its third season.

Danai Gurira plays the iconic character Michonne, a relentless and strong katana-wielding woman with a mysterious past and steely resolve, who becomes part of the close-knit group in a zombie apocalypse world and gradually reveals deeply compassionate and intelligent traits.

Danai Gurira had to learn how to ride horses for the series, which she enjoyed because it was a physical challenge.

In February 2019, reports emerged that Danai Gurira would be exiting the show once she had filmed her last episodes during the tenth season.

Danai Gurira co-created it, produced it and wrote the fourth episode, titled "What We".

Danai Gurira was cast to star in Marvel's film Black Panther, which was released in February 2018.

Danai Gurira played the loyal and highly skilled General Okoye, the head of the Dora Milaje an elite all-female special forces unit protectors of Wakanda and its king, the Black Panther.

Danai Gurira received critical acclaim for her performance, a Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and a People's Choice Awards for The Action Movie Star of 2018.

Danai Gurira reprised the role of Okoye in the movies Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Danai Gurira was set to star in a spinoff series on Disney+, but plans for the show got ultimately scrapped.

In 2008, Danai Gurira appeared at the Global Green Sustainable Design Awards to read a letter written by a New Orleans native displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2011, Danai Gurira co-founded Almasi Arts, an organization dedicated to continuing arts education in Zimbabwe.

In 2015, Danai Gurira signed an open letter begun by the ONE Campaign.

On December 2,2018, Danai Gurira was announced as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador by UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the Global Citizen Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Danai Gurira has been a Global Citizen ambassador since 2016, partnering with the organization on several campaigns and Global Citizen Festivals, including hosting the event in Ghana in 2022.

Danai Gurira is a Christian and lives in Los Angeles, though she regularly spends time in New York City and owns an apartment there.