Danai Gurira Says ‘I’ll Always Be A Playwright’


In the last decade, Danai Gurira went from a relative newcomer to a Hollywood star.

The actress first rose to fame following her breakout role as Michonne in the hit AMC series The Walking Dead. Since then, Gurira has gone on to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), most recently reprising her role as Okoye in the current box office hit, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Before she even made a splash in Hollywood though, Gurira had already been a star in her own right. For years, she had been involved in theater, even scoring a Tony nomination for a Broadway play that stars Black Panther co-star Lupita Nyong’o.

While Gurira was interested in performing early on, she was more drawn to theater than anything else. “My theater life began pretty early on. I was born in the United States but raised in Zimbabwe. I actually spent a lot of time in theater there as a child,” the actress said. “I was part of a children’s performing arts workshop, which really introduced me to the dramatic arts.”

Gurira also credits the head of that workshop for encouraging her to pursue it.

“He indoctrinated me into theater back then and got me very interested in the craft,” she recalled. And when she started to look for material to perform, Gurira could find “enough stories about contemporary African people,” which is why she decided to write them herself.

“My playwriting became a “necessity being the mother of invention” type thing.”

And while one might say that Gurira’s background as an actress herself helped her promote her work. But that wasn’t exactly the case in the beginning.

“My first play, which was a two-hander that I co-created and co-performed, snowballed into this hit. But this was back in 2005, and initially the theaters we wanted were like, ‘Ha ha ha. Oh no. Okay,’” she recalled.

“And we could have given up and been like, ‘Oh, let’s change it to make them happy.’ But there were so many people who did love it that some of those people brought other people to see it, who then gave us our shot.”

Over the years, Gurira had written several plays, including Eclipsed. Set in the backdrop of the Liberian Civil War, Eclipsed tells the story of the captive wives of a rebel officer coming together until a new girl arrives and throws off their dynamic. The story is inspired by a photo the actress/playwright once spotted in the newspaper.

“I was enthralled by an image I saw in the New York Times in 2003 of women in the Liberian war right when it was at its climax,” Gurira recalled.

“There were some women rebel fighters who were getting attention in the Western press because no one had ever seen anything like this. I was raised in Africa and I had never seen anything like it, women with AK-47s, dressed very hip and looking formidable. I was keen to one day pursue that story and put it on the stage.”

To research for the play, Gurira made her way to Liberia, meeting with people who would ultimately become the basis for her central characters, including Nyong’o’s “The Girl.” “I met amazing women who told me unbelievable things,” she said. “They inspired a lot of the characters you see on the stage.”

And while the Liberian Civil War happened several years ago, Gurira couldn’t help but realize how much her play resonates even in the present time.

“Unfortunately, these are very current issues,” she admitted. “And it is appalling that they are very current issues. One would think we’d have figured them out by now, but we haven’t and we still live in a world where women are disproportionally victimized, attacked, put into inhumane circumstances and left to feel perpetually unsafe. This is a huge global human rights issue that has not been resolved.”

Now, Gurira may be incredibly busy with her acting projects these days. But that doesn’t mean that she’s forgotten about theater altogether. There are still a lot of important stories to tell after all.

“Immigrant stories are very exciting to me. I’ve been very focused on TV and film and putting those voices out there,” the actress explained. “I’ll always be a playwright, but getting things to the screen is just a process I’ve had my focus on more recently.”

And no matter what she writes next, it’s going to come from the heart. “For me, it has got to come from your own passion,” Gurira said. “It’s too hard to do things any other way, and you’re creating something that ultimately you might regret…”

Meanwhile, fans need not worry because it doesn’t look like Gurira will be giving up acting anytime soon. The actress is expected to return once again as Okoye in an upcoming Black Panther series for Disney+. She’s also starring in the upcoming Walking Dead spinoff. thethings.com

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