'The Walking Dead': 5 things you didn't know about Danai Gurira
To celebrate the Oct. 22 Season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead — the series’ 100th episode — Yahoo TV will be posting a new TWD-related story every day through the season opener.
Now here’s a zombie slayer with an impressive résumé. Danai Gurira may be best known as fierce warrior Michonne on The Walking Dead, but when she’s not battling the undead on AMC’s post apocalyptic drama, she’s busy being an advocate, an author, and an all-around awesome lady. You may know Michonne as a sword-wielding survivor on TWD, but here are some things you may not know about the actress who plays her.
1. She was born in Iowa but was raised in Africa.
Gurira told Rolling Stone she likes to call herself “Zimerican” because she was born in the Midwest to Zimbabwean parents. Gurira was born on Valentine’s Day, 1978 in Iowa, but by the time she turned five her family relocated to Zimbabwe, which she says was “the gem of Africa” at the time. “It was considered the most successful African nation,” she said. “I had a really delightful childhood. I was in a very multiracial, multi-cultural schooling system.” The future actress later moved back to the U.S. for college, attending Macalester College in Minnesota to study social psychology before earning her Masters of Fine Arts in acting from NYU.
2. She used to be a competitive swimmer.
Sword-wielding isn’t her only talent. Gurira told Us Weekly she is an avid swimmer. “I used to compete as a kid and hated to lose,” she said. In fact, the TWD star was an all around jock when she was growing up. “I was a swimmer, a tennis player, a hockey player,” she told Rolling Stone. “Then, when I was 13, I joined a Children’s Performing Arts workshop in Zimbabwe.” Today, she kicks butt with Jillian Michaels workouts.
3. She’s an advocate for women’s equality.
Gurira uses her fame as a platform to help spread the word about causes she is passionate about, like Girl Up, an organization aimed at female empowerment and equality for women. The actress even created an awareness hub, Love Our Girls (www.logpledge.org) as a way to communicate information. “The more I keep myself aware, the more I get sparked with outrage and ideas around how I can make a difference,” she told Vogue. “We’re still stuck in an epidemic around this issue, and it’s crazy. … Why is there no gender equality anywhere on the globe?”
4. She doesn’t like to watch horror movies.
Although Gurira stars on one of the scariest shows on TV, she admits she’s not a fan of the horror genre. “Surprisingly, I don’t watch horror movies since I don’t enjoy being scared,” she told Us Weekly. “My favorite TV shows are Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, Modern Family, and Veep. I loved Breaking Bad. My dad’s a chemistry professor and Walter White reminded me of him, minus the bad bits.”
5. She’s a Tony Award nominated playwright.
Gurira is the author of Broadway’s Eclipsed, her debut show that made history as the first Broadway play with an all-female cast, writer, and director. She also won critical acclaim off-Broadway with Familiar, the story of a Zimbabwean family preparing for their first-generation American daughter’s wedding. Gurira told Vogue it is not difficult to divide her time between writing and acting. “I’m a storyteller,” she said. “I’m always willing to serve the story, a story I believe in, in whatever way is necessary. If I need to write the story I believe in, I will write it. If I’ve been offered to act in a story that I truly believe in, I will happily do that, but I’m a storyteller.”
The Walking Dead Season 8 premieres Oct. 22 at 9 p.m. on AMC.
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