ELLE MAG. TRIES IT: CONFUSES BLACK WOMEN

Personal life

Danai Jekesai Gurira was born in Grinnell, Iowa to parents from Zimbabwe. She has an older brother who is a chiropractor and two sisters, while her mother is a university librarian and her father was a Chemistry teacher.^[1] She graduated from Grinnell High School and then later went onto Macalester College and earned her MFA at the New York University.^[2] Gurira is a Christian.^[3] In 2008, she appeared at the Global Green Sustainable Design Awards to read a letter written by a New Orleans native displaced by Hurricane Katrina.^[4] Gurira's play, In the Continuum, commemorated World AIDS Day in December 2011.^[5] Gurira co-founded Almasi in 2011, an organization dedicated to continuing arts education in Zimbabwe.^[1]

[edit]Career

In 2006, Gurira won an Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for writing, and a Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress^[2] for off-Broadway play In the Continuum.^[6] In 2007, she starred in the film The Visitor with Richard Jenkins, for which she won Method Fest Film Festival for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in Ghost Town, 3 Backyards, My Soul to Take and Restless City and has guest starred in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Life on Mars and Law & Order.

In 2009, Gurira debuted on Broadway in August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone.^[7] From 2010 to 2011, Gurira appeared in a recurring role on the HBOdrama series Treme.

In March 2012, it was announced that Gurira would join the cast of AMC's drama series The Walking Dead as Michonne, in the third season.^[8][9][10]

Gurira will be in the upcoming Indie film Ma' George as the title character.

She won a 2012 Whiting Writers' Award.