Danai Gurira

EARLY LIFE

Danai Jekesai 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. Her parents moved from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to the United States in 1964. She is the youngest of four siblings. 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, Harare. 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

Gurira is a Zimbabwean-American actress, playwright, screenwriter, producer, and activist. She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne in 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 In the Continuum (Obie Award), The Convert, Familiar, and Eclipsed (nominated for six Tony Awards). For the screen, she wrote an episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024), for which she received a Black Reel TV Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series. She has owned a production company called Gurazoo Productions since 2020, which has an overall television deal with ABC Studios. She is set to appear in three upcoming films: Matchbox (2026), a remake of The Thomas Crown Affair (2027), and Here Comes the Flood.

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. She is an advocate for women, the end of poverty, and for HIV/AIDS awareness. In 2011, Gurira co-founded Almasi Arts, an organization dedicated to continuing arts education in Zimbabwe. In 2016, she founded the non-profit organization Love Our Girls, which aims to highlight the issues and challenges that specifically affect women throughout the world. Gurira has been a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador since 2018.