Last Nite's Oscars: Wunmi Mosaku Gets Global Recognition (Entertainment)
She loved a film titled Annie as a child, she winds up a celebrated actor playing Annie in a film. And, that heralds her ti global stardom.
Wunmi Mosaku was born in Zaria, Kaduna in the north to Nigerian parents. When she was one, her parents emigrated to UK. There, she grew up on an estate in Manchester.
Due to her obsession with the musical film Annie as a kid, she expressed a strong desire to become an actor. Upon telling her parents, she said on the Graham Norton Show.
Upon hearing of her ambition, her bemused parents asked her how does she plan to realize that ambition? Determined, she made online searches which led to her discovery that actor Albert Finney, who played Daddy Warbucks in the Annie film of her childhood obsession, had trained at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in London.
That was key. Mosaku later followed his footsteps by taking a £3.50 journey on the Megabus for a successful audition there. Her amazing singing vocals were enhanced as a member of the Manchester Choir.
That was how her journey as a trained actor began. It came full circle for the 39-year-old, when she won the prestigious BAFTA film awards for Best Supporting Actress for her widely-acclaimed role as a Hoodoo priestess in Sinners, a musical horror movie
Name of her character? Annie.
With this success, Mosaku is the first black British winner of the supporting actress category at the Bafta film awards.
Mosaku won this award nine years after she won the same Best Supporting Actress category at the TV Baftas for her role in the BBC drama Damilola, Our Loved Boy, which deeply on the death of 10-year-old Damilola Taylo, a son of Nigerian immigrants in London. The incident drew national attention when he was stabbed while returning home from a library in London.
Mosaku s spectacular feat in that TV drama drew her to the attention of the production crew of TV dramas Luther and Black Mirror as well as gigs on the Marvel movies before her big starring role in gum occured with Sinners.
Not only did it earn her the BAFTA gong, Mosaku also attracted the attention the ultra prestigious Academy of Motion Pictures Arts popularly called The Oscars.
Despite her loss in the same category to Amy Madigan for her role in Weapons during the Oscars ceremony last night, Mosaku is undeterred because she is blazing hot and the world is noticing.
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