Idara Victor

Idara Victor was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Barbara and Stan Victor, both from Akwa Ibom State in southern Nigeria, and she is the middle child of three girls, who grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. Victor "was probably the loudest of the siblings", and started dancing and playing piano at the age of eight, that led to her singing an opera aria for the first time at the age of 15 in a state competition and exhibition. At the age of 13, she won the Miss New York Junior Teen contest. She was discovered by an agent at a fashion show commitment, and pushed towards a career in modeling, but she intended to pursue an acting career.

After graduating high school, Victor enrolled in the undergrad program of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied entrepreneurial management and marketing. With friends she performed plays in parks around Philadelphia and studied acting privately, going to a few professional auditions and booking work while she was home in New York on summer breaks.

At UPenn, she still performed Shakespeare readings and danced with the dance troupe African Rhythms West African ballet and Afro-Cuban dance in her free time. When Victor graduated, she left a job offer at InStyle magazine, started making music with her friend Mike "Double-O" (Kidz in the Hall), and began training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, a conservatory of the Tisch School of the Arts. She developed her artist community with many friends from the NYU program, and her friend Hyun Kim linked her up with the Nigerian-American actress Adepero Oduye for mentoring support. To finance her studies, Victor provided an online clothing store called Girled-Out, and also trained daily with actors from all over the world. As she watched Cate Blanchett in a movie, "the truth would grip me, I would think, I'm dying – my heart has definitely stopped, and if I don't get to get up there and do it too, I might as well just keep it off permanently."