Gugu Mbatha-Raw Bio
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Date of Birth: June 30, 1983
Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha was born in Oxford, England to parents Anne Raw and South African doctor Patrick Mbatha. Her name “Gugulethu” means “our pride” in Zulu. Her father left when she was one, and she was brought up by her Caucasian mother in the small town of Witney in Oxfordshire, where she attended the The Henry Box School.
At the age of 11, Gugu joined the local acting group Dramascope. As a child she had quite a busy afterschool life with dancing, acting and saxophone lessons. She joined the Oxford Youth Music Theatre in her teens. In 2001 Gugu won a scholarship to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. In her first year at the school she was selected to play Isabella in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
Following graduation in 2004, she began landing guest appearances on TV shows such as Bad Girls(1999), Doctor Who (2005) and Marple (2007).
However, despite her screen success, she didn’t forget her love of the theater. Gugu landed the role of Juliet inRomeo and Juliet at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. She has also appeared on the Broadway stage as Ophelia opposite Jude Law in Hamlet
.Gugu's film credits include Larry Crowne (2011), Odd Thomas (2012), Blackbird (2014) and Belle (2014), in which she stars as Dido Elizabeth Belle, a woman of mixed race raised in an aristocratic British home at a time when slavery in England was still legal. She can most recently be seen starring alongside Matthew McConaughey in the civil war biopic Free State of Jones (2016), the crime drama The Whole Truth (2016) opposite Keanu Reeves, and the political drama Miss Sloane (2016) starring Jessica Chastain. In 2017, she will be appearing in the sci-fi thriller God Particle (2017), as well as in the live-action remake Beauty and the Beast (2017).
Filmography:
Beauty and the Beast (2017)God Particle (2017)
Miss Sloane (2016)
The Whole Truth (2016)
Free State of Jones (2016)
Blackbird (2014) Belle (2013) Odd Thomas (2012) Larry Crowne (2011)