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Danai Gurira: Popular actor in Black Panther and screenplay writer of Americanah

Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 11:32 AM by Joseph Omotayo

- Danai Gurira is an American actor and playwright who has won several awards and play-written many movies and plays

- The popular playwright will also be screenwriting Americanah, a popular novel by Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

- Gurira has been commissioned for several theatres and took a lead role in popular American series The Walking Dead

Danai Gurira is an American actor and playwright who was born on February 14, 1978. She is best known for the popular sci-fi series, The Walking Dead and acting as Okoye in one of the cinema-breaking movies, Black Panther.

She was also the writer of the Broadway play called Eclipsed, an art she got the nomination of Tony Award for Best Play for.

Born in Zimbabwe, the playwright's parents emigrated to the United States in 1964 when her father, a lecturer, got an appointment with the University of Wisconsin.

After doing her secondary school at Dominican Covent High School, she studied at the Macalester College where she graduated with a BA in psychology.

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The black American said she took to playwrighting because she wanted to consolidate her strength as an actress.

She has contributed to so many theatre productions like In the Continuum. Gurira has also been commissioned by other theatre houses like the Yale Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons and the Royal Court.

Between 2010 and 2011, she was one of the significant casts in HBO drama series, Treme. That was before she got starred for the Walking Dead, a pivotal series in her career.

She has won awards like Obie Award, Helen Hayes Awards, Method Fest, Satellite Award, Whitting Awards, Satum Award, among others.

Gurira will also be writing the plot of Americanah, the novel by popular Nigerian author, Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Nigerian author who is also a pop culture enthusiast, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will be having her Americanah adapted for the screen by HBO’s Warner Media.