Wunmi Mosaku

Wunmi Mosaku
Mosaku at The Old Vic, Sunday, 14 November 2010
Born	Oluwunmi Mosaku 1986 Nigeria
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (2007)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2006–present

Wunmi Mosaku (born 1986) is a Nigerian-born British actress, known for her roles as Joy in the BBC Two miniseries Moses Jones (2009) and Holly Lawson in the ITV series Vera (2011–12). She won the 2017 BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Gloria Taylor in the TV film Damilola, Our Loved Boy (2016). In 2019, she starred in the fifth series of Luther.

Early life

Mosaku was born in Nigeria, and subsequently emigrated to Manchester, England, when she was one year old. She attended Trinity Church of England High School and Xaverian Sixth Form College. She also sang for eleven years in the Manchester Girls Choir. Her parents were both professors in Nigeria but were unable to do the same jobs in the UK. Her mother started a business and her father ended up returning to Nigeria.

Career

Mosaku graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2007 and made her stage debut at the Arcola Theatre in a production of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's The Great Theatre of the World. Since then she has also appeared in Rough Crossings, directed by Rupert Goold and based on the book by Simon Schama, at the Lyric Hammersmith; The Vertical Hour by David Hare and Truth and Reconciliation, both at the Royal Court Theatre and Mules at the Young Vic. In 2009 she appeared in Katrina a verbatim play which told six people's stories of their struggles of survival when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans August 2005. Mosaku was originally cast as Sophie in the UK premiere of Ruined by Lynn Nottage at the Almeida Theatre but had to pull out due to an injury.

In 2008, she appeared in the first of the UNDEREXPOSED exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery designed to raise the profile of black role models and celebrates the talent that exists among the Black British community. Her photo also appeared on Commercial Way, Peckham, London, as part of the exhibition. In 2009, she starred in the BBC Two series Moses Jones, for which she won Best Actress in a Miniseries at the Roma Fiction Festival.

She featured on the front cover of Screen International magazine June–July 2009 as one of the UK Stars of Tomorrow, and in 2011 was featured in Nylon Magazine's 2011 Young Hollywood issue.

In 2010, Wunmi Mosaku was named one of The Seven Fresh Faces of Toronto International Film Festival, for I Am Slave, in which she starred. She plays Malia, a girl who has been kidnapped from her village in Sudan, and sold into slavery. For her performance Mosaku won awards such as Best Actress at the Birmingham Black Film Festival, Best Onscreen performance at the Cultural Diversity Awards and Best Female performance at the Screen Nation Awards. In 2011 Mosaku joined Vera and played the role of Holly Lawson but left the show after just one year.

In 2015, Mosaku played the part of Quentina, a traffic warden, in the three-part BBC series Capital based on John Lanchester's novel of the same name. In 2016, she appeared in Playtest, an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror.

Mosaku won the 2017 BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Gloria Taylor in the TV film Damilola, Our Loved Boy.

Personal life

When asked to list her personal heroes, Mosaku included her grandmother Anike Adisa, whom she described as having "taught me so many lessons"; actor Albert Finney who was her inspiration for attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; her colleague and former instructor at RADA, William Gaskill; Paul Newman, who she admired, not just for his acting, but also for his philanthropic efforts with Newman's Own; and Oprah Winfrey, who Mosaku considers "a superwoman."

Filmography

Television

Year	Show	Role	Notes
2007	*Sold: Episode #1.5	Firefighter	ITV
2008	Never Better: "First Week Euphoria"	Server	BBC Two
2008	Doctors: "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding?"	Nurse Kelly Strathairn	BBC One
2008	The Bill: "Trial and Error: Part 1"	Sophie Oduya	ITV
2009	Moses Jones	Joy	BBC Two
2010	Silent Witness	Charlie Gibbs	BBC One
2010	One Night in Emergency	Beautiful Nurse	BBC Scotland television film
2010	Father & Son	Stacey Cox	RTÉ One, ITV
2010	Law & Order: UK	Tamika Vincent	ITV
2011	Vera	Holly Lawson	ITV
2011	32 Brinkburn Street	Joy	BBC One
2011	The Body Farm	Rosa Gilbert	BBC One
2011	Jo	Angélique Alassane
2013	Dancing on the Edge	Carla	BBC Two
	Truckers		BBC One
2014	In the Flesh	Maxine Martin	BBC Three
2015	Don't Take My Baby	Belinda	BBC Three
	Capital	Quentina	BBC One
2016	Black Mirror	Katie	Episode: "Playtest"
	Damilola, Our Loved Boy	Gloria Taylor	BBC One BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress
2017	Fearless	DCS Olivia Greenwood	ITV
	The End of the F***ing World	DC Teri Darego	Channel 4, All 4, Netflix
2018	Kiri	DI Vanessa Mercer	Channel 4
2019	Lovecraft Country	Ruby Dandridge	Main role
2019	Luther	DS Catherine Halliday	BBC One
2019	Animal Babies: First Year on Earth	Narrator	BBC Two: 3 part wildlife series
2021	Loki		Disney+

Film

Year	Film	Role	Director
2006	The Women of Troy	Helen of Troy	Phil Hawkins
2010	Honeymooner	Seema	Col Spector
2010	Womb	Erica	Benedek Fliegauf
2010	I Am Slave	Malia	Gabriel Range
2011	Stolen	Sonia Carney	Justin Chadwick
2011	Citadel	Marie	Ciaran Foy
2013	Philomena	Young nun	Stephen Frears
2016	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	Kahina Ziri	Zack Snyder
2016	Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them	Beryl	David Yates
2018	Leading Lady Parts	Herself	Jessica Swale
2019	Sweetness in the Belly	Amina	Zeresenay Berhane Mehari
2020	His House		Remi Weekes

Radio

• Drama on 3: The Vertical Hour (2008), on BBC Radio 3, as Terri Scholes
• Drama on 4 Normal and Nat (2009) on BBC Radio 4 as Shanice
• Drama on 4 Amazing Grace (2010) on BBC Radio 4 as Grace

External links

• Wunmi Mosaku at RADA
• Wunmi Mosaku at IMDb
• Wunmi Mosaku at tv.com