How Wunmi Mosaku went from Manchester estate to Oscar nomination

As a young child, Wunmi Mosaku had always focused on her acting career, inspired by her love for the 1980s musical Annie.

“I watched Annie every day after school,” Mosaku, 39, said in a recent interview on The Graham Norton Show.

“I told my mom and sister, ‘I don’t want to do math and economics, I think I want to do acting.’

“They said, ‘How do you do that?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.'”

To answer his mother’s question, Mosaku decided to Google the cast of his favorite movie, seeking much-needed information on how that movie could break into the acting industry.

One person stood out: Albert Finney, who grew up in Salford, not far from where Mosaku lived with his family in Manchester.

“He went to Rada [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]” he said.

“This was the first time I heard about drama school and I auditioned for Rada and got in.

“It changed my whole life. I will love this movie forever.”

It was previously announced that Mosaku received an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her role as Hoodoo priestess Annie in Sinners.

He is the only British acting nominee.

Mosaku has already received a supporting actress nomination at the Actor Awards (formerly SAG) and has also made the Bafta longlist for the role.

Written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Ryan Coogler, the genre-defying film Sinners follows Michael B. Jordan in a dual role as a pair of twins named Smoke and Stack, who defend their hometown against vampires in 1930s Mississippi.

During the film’s press tour last year, Mosaku talked about the lasting impact of playing Annie and how the role continued to resonate with her long after filming ended.

“I think deeply about this, like, what did I learn from Sinners? What did I learn from Annie? What did I need to unlearn?” he said.

“I often come back to these things when I doubt myself, worry, and fear

“So every time someone asks me a question right now, I think, ‘This is where Annie works today, or this is where Sinners works today.'”

This is not the first time Mosaku’s acting has received critical acclaim.

In 2016, she won the Bafta TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Gloria Taylor in the TV movie Damilola, Our Son We Love.

The series told the story of 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor, who was stabbed in the leg and left for dead in a south London stairwell in November 2000.

Mosaku was 15 years old when he heard the news of her murder.

“I came from Nigeria as a child,” he said in a 2016 interview with the BBC.

“I didn’t know how long they had been in the country until I read the script, so I figured she was probably just starting school like me.

“I thought they were like other Nigerian communities I knew in Manchester.

“I grew up on an estate in Manchester and people I knew from school died in gang conflict and I always thought, if I had been on a different estate at a different time, it could have been me.”

Mosaku’s first professional work was the play The Great Theater of the World.

She starred as Joy in the BBC Two miniseries Moses Jones, Holly Lawson in the ITV series Vera, Det Sgt Catherine Halliday in the BBC’s Luther and former Met Police detective Riya Ajunwa in ITV’s Passenger.

She also played Dr Verity Willis, aka Hunter B-15, in the Marvel series Loki before reprising the role in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Earlier this month, Mosaku posted: “anti-announcement pregnancy announcement” To avoid speculation and questions at British Vogue.

In an open letter to readers, Mosaku, who is expecting her second child, said: “In my Nigerian culture, we don’t often announce this kind of news.

“It needs to be protected.

“Everything in me resists sharing this publicly, not because I’m not grateful or joyful, but because I feel like this is one of the few things that truly belongs to me.

“The success of Sinners, a project that has given me more than I could have ever imagined, a cast and crew that have become like family, and the undeniable support of moviegoers, has also given me new visibility.

“I will be in public view in the coming weeks” [during awards season] “I will do this at an ever-increasing pace as we enthusiastically take our place among our peers.”