1. Emmanuel Kabongo was born on December 25,1986 and is a Canadian actor and film producer.
22 Facts About Emmanuel Kabongo
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Emmanuel Kabongo subsequently became known for his performances in the CBC Television series 21 Thunder and Frankie Drake Mysteries and in films such as The Animal Project, Antibirth, and Brown Girl Begins.
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Emmanuel Kabongo played a gladiator in Paul W S Anderson's Pompeii and has guest-starred in television series such as Murdoch Mysteries and Star Trek: Discovery.
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Emmanuel Kabongo has earned three Canadian Screen Award nominations throughout his career: in 2016 for his performance in Teenagers, in 2022 for his performance in the television film Death She Wrote, and in 2023 for his performance in Chateau Laurier.
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Emmanuel Kabongo was born and raised in Lubumbashi, a city in Zaire, before relocating with his family to South Africa during the war.
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Emmanuel Kabongo has four brothers, including basketball player Myck Kabongo, and one sister.
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In school, Emmanuel Kabongo played competitive basketball; he later turned down a basketball scholarship from the University of New Brunswick to pursue acting.
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Emmanuel Kabongo began his acting career in 2009, working as an extra on Canadian television series such as Nikita and Flashpoint.
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Emmanuel Kabongo completed an actor's residency at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre in 2015.
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In 2014, Kabongo portrayed a gladiator in Paul W S Anderson's romantic historical disaster film Pompeii.
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Emmanuel Kabongo starred as the lead male protagonist in the series.
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In 2016, Emmanuel Kabongo produced and starred in A Man's Story, a short film for which he received funding from bravoFACT.
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In September 2016, CBC announced it had commissioned a one-hour drama series that follows the star players of an under-21 soccer academy in Montreal, titled 21 Thunder, with Emmanuel Kabongo slated to star as one of the lead characters, an Ivory Coast mid-fielder named Junior Lolo.
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Also that year, Emmanuel Kabongo appeared in three episodes of the CBC series Frankie Drake Mysteries as a boxer named Moses, and he starred opposite Mouna Traore in Brown Girl Begins, a post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Sharon Lewis.
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Emmanuel Kabongo received a second Canadian Screen Award nomination in 2022, for his leading performance in the television film Death She Wrote.
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Emmanuel Kabongo received a third nomination in 2023 for this supporting performance in the web series Chateau Laurier.
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Emmanuel Kabongo won several other awards for his performance in Chateau Laurier at web series festivals.
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Emmanuel Kabongo was featured in the film alongside a cast that included Sam Worthington and Simu Liu.
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In 2024, Emmanuel Kabongo starred in and produced the low-budget independent drama feature film Sway.
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Emmanuel Kabongo found early acting inspiration in action films from the 1990s that his mother showed him as a child.
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Emmanuel Kabongo was active during the protests following the police murder of George Floyd in summer 2020.
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Emmanuel Kabongo became engaged to his girlfriend, Raquel Melnichuk, in December 2021.