Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw MBE (; born 21 April 1983) is a British actress. She began acting at the National Youth Music Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and gained acclaim for her roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Octavia in Anthony and Cleopatra in 2005 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. She made her West End and Broadway debut portraying Ophelia in Hamlet in 2009. For her role as the title character in Jessica Swale's 2015 play Nell Gwynn, she received an Evening Standard Theatre Award nomination.

She took early roles in television acting in Doctor Who (2007), Undercovers (2010), and Touch (2012). She earned acclaim for her leading film roles in Belle (2013), and Beyond the Lights (2014) and took supporting roles in Miss Sloane (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), and Misbehaviour (2020). She took leading roles in the Netflix Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" (2016) and the Apple TV+ drama series Surface (2022–) and acted in The Morning Show (2019), and the Disney+ series Loki (2021–2023).

In 2017, Mbatha-Raw was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama. In February 2021, Mbatha-Raw was appointed a global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Early life, family and education Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw was born on 21 April 1983 in Oxford, the daughter of Patrick Mbatha, a South African doctor, and Anne Raw, an English nurse. Her first name is a contraction of , which means "our treasure" in isiZulu. As a student, her father was a member of the African National Congress and an activist opposing apartheid in South Africa, and had to flee as a result. Her parents separated when she was a year old, and she lived mostly with her mother.

Mbatha-Raw was educated at The Henry Box School, a state comprehensive school in the market town of Witney in Oxfordshire, where she was raised.

Interested in acting, dance, and musical theatre from a young age, she participated in the National Youth Theatre. Her credits include dancing at the Judy Tompsett School of Dance, now known as the Marsh Tompsett School of Dance. In 2001, she moved to London to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. For that role she was nominated for best actress by the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. She next had minor roles on the television series Bad Girls (2006) and Marple (2007) before taking on a recurring role on Doctor Who in 2007. She played Tish Jones, the sister of Martha Jones, companion to the Tenth Doctor, in four episodes, most prominently in "The Lazarus Experiment". In 2009, Mbatha-Raw was cast as Ophelia in Hamlet on London's West End and Broadway, opposite Jude Law as Prince Hamlet. After seeing her in Hamlet, J. J. Abrams cast her in his 2010 television series Undercovers, which was cancelled after 13 episodes.

In June 2011, Mbatha-Raw was cast as the female lead on the Fox television series Touch, opposite Kiefer Sutherland. She had a supporting role in the romantic comedy Larry Crowne (2011), written and directed by Tom Hanks. She also was named one of 42 "Brits to Watch" by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

2013–present

Mbatha-Raw garnered praise for her performance in Belle (2013), portraying Dido Elizabeth Belle, a mixed-race woman raised as a gentlewoman in 18th-century England. She won the Best Actress award and was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards. She was also nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actress. In 2014, she spoke at the United Nations headquarters when the film was screened in honor of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Later that year, Mbatha-Raw starred as a pop singer in the romantic drama Beyond the Lights, for which she earned a Best Actress nomination at the 2014 Gotham Awards.

In 2015, she was nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award and had a supporting role in the space opera Jupiter Ascending. She also played Prema Mutiso, the wife of a forensic neuropathologist who first discovered extensive brain damage in NFL players due to concussions, in the biopic Concussion alongside Will Smith. On stage, she portrayed the title role in Jessica Swale's play Nell Gwynn, about the actress who became the mistress of King Charles II of England; it ran at Shakespeare's Globe from 19 September to 17 October 2015. She was nominated for an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance.

In 2016, Mbatha-Raw was one of the two leads in "San Junipero", an episode of Black Mirror, and played a major supporting role in Miss Sloane, a drama about Washington lobbyists starring Jessica Chastain. In 2016, she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones, a biopic of farmer Newton Knight, a resister of the Confederacy. She played Knight's common-law wife, Rachel, a freedwoman he had a family with after the Civil War.

Mbatha-Raw was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours, for services to drama.

In 2017, she played Plumette in the live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon and co-starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. In 2018, she starred in a number of science fiction features, including A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay, and The Cloverfield Paradox.

She played Mary Seacole in a biopic of her life proposed in 2019 by Racing Green Pictures and producer Billy Peterson, intended for release in 2020.

In 2021 and 2023, she played Judge Ravonna Renslayer in the Disney+ series Loki. In 2022 and 2025, she starred in the Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Surface, on which she also served as an executive producer.

In 2021, Mbatha-Raw was appointed a global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Since 2018, she has visited Burundian and Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Uganda as well as taken part in UNHCR's EveryOneCounts and Films of Hope campaigns. In 2021, she was one of the announcers of the Refugee Paralympic team. In November 2021, Mbatha-Raw was cast in the romantic film Nobody's Heart with Edgar Ramírez, directed by Isabel Coixet.

In 2024, she played the female lead in the Netflix action film Lift opposite Kevin Hart. The same year, it was announced that Mbatha-Raw would return to the Doctor Who universe as a new character in the spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea.

Personal life Mbatha-Raw has "always loved art", and considered becoming an artist instead of an actor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she painted portraits of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, using painting supplies that her Concussion co-star Will Smith gave her in 2016. She also paints portraits of her costars in film and television; she says that her portrait of actor Kevin Hart hangs in his office at his production company.

Acting credits

Film Year Title Role Notes 2007 Straightheads Young PA 2011 Larry Crowne Talia 2013 Odd Thomas Viola Peabody Belle Dido Elizabeth Belle 2014 Beyond the Lights Noni Jean 2015 Jupiter Ascending Famulus Concussion Prema Mutiso 2016 Free State of Jones Rachel Knight The Whole Truth Janelle Brady Miss Sloane Esme Manucharian 2017 Beauty and the Beast Plumette also voice 2018 The Cloverfield Paradox Ava Hamilton Irreplaceable You Abbie A Wrinkle in Time Dr. Kate Murry Fast Color Ruth Farming Ms. Dapo 2019 Motherless Brooklyn Laura Rose2020 Come Away Adult Alice Misbehaviour Jennifer Hosten Summerland Vera 2024 Lift Abby Gladwell 2025 Fuze Chief Superintendent Zuzana The Woman in Cabin 10 Rowan

Television Year Title Role Notes 2004 Holby City Collette Hill Episode: "Overload" 2005 Walk Away and I Stumble Nurse Television film 2006 Vital Signs Eve Recurring role; 5 episodes Bad Girls Fidelity Saunders 2 episodes Spooks Jenny Guest cast (series 5) 2007 Doctor Who Tish Jones 4 episodes Agatha Christie's Marple Tina Argyle Episode: "Ordeal by Innocence" 2008 Lost in Austen Piranha 2 episodes Bonekickers Viv Davis Main role; 6 episodes Trial & Retribution Jenny Miller Episode: "The Box: Part 1" 2009 Fallout Shanice Roberts Television film 2010, 2012 Undercovers Samantha Bloom Main role; 13 episodes 2012 Touch Clea Hopkins Main role (season 1); 13 episodes 2016, 2019 Easy Sophie 2 episodes 2016 Black Mirror Kelly Episode: "San Junipero" 2019 The Morning Show Hannah Shoenfeld Main role (season 1); 10 episodes The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Seladon (voice) Main role; 9 episodes 2021–2023 Loki Judge Ravonna Lexus Renslayer / Rebecca Tourminet 9 episodes 2021 The Girl Before Jane 4 episodes 2022–present Surface Sophie Ellis/Tess Caldwell Lead role; also executive producer 2025 The War Between the Land and the Sea Salt Lead role; 5 episodes Katherine Decker Lead role Mirren Lead role

Theatre Year Title Role Venue 1999 Into the Woods Cinderella's Mother (u/s Rapunzel) National Youth Music Theatre 2005 Antony and Cleopatra Iras/Octavia Royal Exchange in Manchester Romeo and Juliet Juliet Capulet Royal Exchange in Manchester 2007 Big White Fog Wanda Mason Almeida Theatre, West End 2008 Gethsemane Monique National Theatre 2009–10 Hamlet Ophelia Donmar West End and Broadway 2015 Nell Gwynn Nell Gwynn Shakespeare's Globe

Radio Year Title Role Notes 2006 Living with the Enemy Sophie/Various BBC Radio 4 2009 Choice of Straws Michelle BBC Radio 4

Awards and nominations