Danai Jekesai Gurira is a Zimbabwean-American actress, playwright, and activist. She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne on the AMC horror drama series The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024), and as Okoye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films, including Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Gurira is the writer of the Broadway play Eclipsed, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.
Gurira was born on February 14, 1978, in Grinnell, Iowa, to Josephine Gurira, a college librarian, and Roger Gurira, a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry at Grinnell College (both parents later joined the staff of University of Wisconsin–Platteville). Her parents moved from Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, to the United States in 1964. She is the youngest of four siblings; Shingai and Choni are her sisters and Tare, her brother, is a chiropractor. 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.
She attended high school at Dominican Convent High School. Afterward, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. Gurira also earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Date of Birth | 14th February 1978 |
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Age | 47 Years |
Zodiac Sign | Aquarius |
Country | United States of America |
Current City | Grinnell |
Birth Place | Grinnell |
Religion | Christianity |
Nationality | United States of America |
Citizenship | United States of America |
Language | Shona |
Reference | IMDB |
Education |
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New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Macalester College, Dominican Convent High School |
Occupation | actor, playwright, television actor, stage actor, film actor, writer, teacher, screenwriter |
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Awards |
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
Mother of George
The Visitor
My Soul to Take