Naomi Ackie

Naomi Ackie was born on 2 November 1992 in Walthamstow, London, the daughter of second-generation immigrants from Grenada. Her father was a Transport for London employee and her mother worked for the National Health Service. She is one of three children and has an older brother and sister. She went to Walthamstow School for Girls. Her first role was at the age of 11, playing the angel Gabriel in a school nativity play. She studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and graduated in 2012. Ackie's breakthrough film role was in Lady Macbeth (2016), for which she won the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2017. She subsequently appeared in Idris Elba's directorial debut Yardie (2018) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). She also portrayed Bonnie in the second season of Netflix's black comedy series The End of the F***ing World, and a school inspector in Education, an hour-long drama part of Steve McQueen's anthology film series Small Axe. Ackie starred in Zoë Kravitz's directorial debut Blink Twice (2024). Ackie portrayed American singer Whitney Houston in the biographical film I Wanna Dance with Somebody. The film opened to mixed reviews but widespread praise for Ackie's performance, with Variety calling her "a veritable artist of lip-syncing." The Hollywood Reporter noted that Ackie herself is "a capable singer" and can be heard briefly in a few early scenes. Ackie starred in Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17, based on Edward Ashton's science-fiction novel, alongside Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo.