Danai Jekesai Gurira (; born February 14, 1978) is an American and Zimbabwean actress, playwright, screenwriter, producer, and activist. She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne in the AMC horror drama franchise The Walking Dead and Okoye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her films have grossed $6.98 billion, making her the seventh highest-grossing actress of all time.
As a playwright, Gurira wrote the play In the Continuum, for which she won an Obie Award, as well as The Convert, Familiar and Eclipsed, the latter of which was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play. For the screen, she's written an episode of the spin-off The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024), centered on the characters Michonne and Rick Grimes, which received critical acclaim. For this episode, she received a Black Reel TV Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series.
She has been a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador since 2018, and has founded two non-profit organizations. In 2023, she was honored with the TIME100 Impact Award. She is the founder of the production company Gurazoo Productions, which has an overall television deal with ABC Studios.
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Early life and education
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. 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 1980.
She attended high school at Dominican Convent High School. At 19, she returned to the United States to study at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. After that, Gurira earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Career
Early career
Gurira taught playwriting and acting in Liberia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. One of her earliest notable performances occurred in 2001, as a senior at Macalester College. Gurira performed in a production of the Ntozake Shange play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, directed and choreographed by Dale Ricardo Shields. "She was a very intelligent, strong and independent young lady," said Shields. "She approached her studies, her classes, with a lot of focus, and you can see the same things in her performance in Black Panther."
Theater and playwriting
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.
"Born into this world as an African girl, I never understood the absence of voices and people who were similar to me, it never made sense to me that I couldn't see that representation. The very massive magnitude of content you get in television and film, and yet there was this almost absolute absence of the stories of women from the continent and of the continent. [...] I didn't accept any ideas as to why it wasn't there. It just needed to be there. It just has to happen, and I guess I'll have to do it."
As a playwright, she has been commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Royal Court.
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 December 2011, In the Continuum commemorated World AIDS Day 2011. Sponsored by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe, the play was performed at Harare's Theatre and featured the story of two women who were navigating the world after contracting HIV.
In 2009, Gurira made her Broadway acting debut in August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone playing Martha Pentecost.
Gurira's 2012 play The Convert premiered as a co-production between the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey. Later that year, Gurira received the Whiting Award for an emerging playwright and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing in 2013. The play is a historical drama set in 1890s Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) about a woman who turns to the Catholic Church to escape an arranged marriage.
In January 2015, Familiar, a play written by Gurira and directed by Rebecca Taichman, opened at Yale Repertory Theatre. It later premiered Off-Broadway in New York at Playwrights Horizons. The play is about family, cultural identity, and the experience of life as a first-generation American. Gurira has said that it was inspired in part by her family and friends.
Film and television
Gurira starred in the drama film The Visitor in 2007, for which she won Method Fest Independent Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in the 2008 film Ghost Town, the 2010 films 3 Backyards and My Soul to Take, and Restless City in 2011, as well as the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Life on Mars, and Law & Order. From 2010 to 2011, she appeared in the HBO drama series Treme.
In 2013, Gurira played a lead role in director Andrew Dosunmu's independent drama film Mother of George, which premiered at 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Gurira received critical acclaim for her performance as a Nigerian woman struggling to live in the United States. In June 2013, Gurira won the Jean-Claude Gahd Dam award at the 2013 Guys Choice Awards. The film was featured in Indiewire's 100 Best Movies of the Decade list and she was called a "stand out" in the film.
Gurira played rapper Tupac Shakur's mother, Afeni Shakur, in All Eyez on Me, a 2017 biopic about the rap star. Her performance gathered praise with IndieWire saying "Danai Gurira- as Tupac's beloved mother Afeni comes out swinging during the film's opening sequence and never lets up, believably burning right through the screen, conjuring the kind of passion the rest of the film lacks. If anyone makes off with a movie star turn in "All Eyez on Me," it's Walking Dead" star Gurira."The Hollywood Reporter says "Gurira gives great fiery intensity" and Variety in their review said "Afeni Shakur is played by Danai Gurira(who would have been perfect as Nina Simone), Gurira makes her a ruthlessly intelligent analyst of the white power structure who is nevertheless consumed by a rage that has no outlet." For this movie she received a NAACP Image awards nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture.
She owns a production company called Gurazoo Productions. In 2020, Gurira signed a deal with ABC Studios.
Before the 2020 pandemic, a limited series adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Americanah was being produced for HBO MAX with Danai writing the pilot and serving as showrunner and Lupita Nyong'o as the lead actress. However, production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced Nyong'o to drop out of the series over scheduling conflicts, which ultimately led to HBO Max's decision to drop the project.
Activism and philanthropy
Gurira is an advocate for women, the end of poverty, and for HIV/AIDS awareness.
In 2008, 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, Gurira co-founded Almasi Arts, an organization dedicated to continuing arts education in Zimbabwe. Gurira currently serves as the Executive Artistic Director.
In 2015, Gurira signed an open letter begun by the ONE Campaign. The letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively.
In 2016, Gurira founded the non-profit organization Love Our Girls, which aims to highlight the issues and challenges that specifically affect women throughout the world. In the same year, Gurira partnered with Johnson & Johnson in the fight against HIV/AIDS. She campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
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.
On December 2, 2018, 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. As a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, Gurira dedicates her support to putting a spotlight on gender equality and women's rights, as well as bringing unheard women's voices front and center. Also in 2018, Gurira teamed up with the international conservation organization WildAid in the campaign "Poaching Steals From Us All", focused on raising awareness of the threat poaching poses to animals such as the rhinoceros and elephants.
In 2023, Gurira teamed up with Peta with her dog Papi in a campaign against leaving dogs in hot cars.
Personal life
Gurira is a Christian and lives in Los Angeles, though she regularly spends time in New York City and owns an apartment there.
Filmography
Works or publications
Gurira, Danai. Running Head: The Neglect of Black Women in Psychology. 2001. Honors paper, Macalester College
Gurira, Danai, and Nikkole Salter. In the continuum. New York, NY: Samuel French, 2008. ISBN 978-0-573-65089-5
Gurira, Danai. Eclipsed. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2010. ISBN 978-0-822-22446-4
Gurira, Danai. The Convert. Washington, DC : Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 2013.
Gurira, Danai. Familiar. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Billy Rose Theatre Division, 2016.
Gurira, Danai. Power of women : Lupita Nyong'o. New York: DKC / O&M, 2016.
