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Current Projects Site InformationSorry for the delay everyone but I was waiting for a better quality video and it never came. I’ve updated the gallery with over 2000 high quality screencaptures of Gugu in her movie Irreplaceable You.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw is high on life. I can hear the smile in her voice when she picks up the phone—her joy bubbles over the line, and it’s wholly warranted.
The last seven days marked a frenzy of career highs for the 34-year-old Brit: the surprise Netflix release of her latest film, The Cloverfield Paradox, was the talk of the Super Bowl; she joined the cast of the Edward Norton-directed Motherless Brooklyn alongside Willem Dafoe and Bruce Willis; and she premiered her other Netflix movie, a heartbreaker of a romantic dramedy titled Irreplaceable You, in New York.
Oh, and last Friday, she became a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire at Buckingham Palace (MBE). Casual. “We’ve been joking that I’ve been working on my damehood since I was 12,” she tells BAZAAR.com, laughing. “I’ve had one rung, three rungs down from a dame, so I’ve still got some more to go.”
It’s not difficult to imagine Mbatha-Raw walking in the footsteps of famous thespian dames like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Harriet Walter. She, too, got her start on the stage before establishing herself through starring roles in Amma Asante’s Belle, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights, last year’s Disney mega-hit Beauty and the Beast, and a critically-acclaimed, Emmy-winning episode of Black Mirror.
But these triumphs merely set the stage for a year poised to shoot Mbatha-Raw to the highest rung of superstardom. Though critics panned the Julius Onah-directed Cloverfield Paradox, it’s worth a watch for Mbatha-Raw’s performance alone. She commands the screen, no easy feat alongside talents such as David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, and Elizabeth Debicki. And that’s merely the start of a string of highly-anticipated projects including the Ava DuVernay-directed A Wrinkle in Time, which is set to claim another box office victory for Mbatha-Raw when it hits theaters March 9.
Below, the actress opens up about her big week, venturing into STEM with her latest projects, and the fairytale Cloverfield moment that led to her casting in A Wrinkle in Time. [More at Source]
Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s acting portfolio boasts roles like a bonnet-wearing 18th-century aristocrat in Belle, a violet-haired pop star in Beyond the Lights, and a futuristic astronaut in The Cloverfield Paradox, to name a few. It’s impossible to predict whom the 35-year-old is going to play next—and that’s just how she likes it. “No one wants to be stuck in a box,” Mbatha-Raw says. “I have a short attention span and want to keep myself interested. Variety is the spice of life, and I never want to get bored.”
At our New York City shoot, she is in full-on storytelling mode, assigning personalities to the many hats she tries on. An oversize green Mulberry topper is “very My Fair Lady,” a straw-bow Delpozo style is appropriately dubbed Minnie Mouse, and a wide-brimmed Elie Saab design is so “Anne of Green Gables” that Mbatha-Raw jokes she should go get some honey from her bees as she poses.
There’s no doubt that Mbatha-Raw loves what she refers to as the dress-up element of getting into character, but when it comes to her hair and makeup, she prefers to keep things simple. “I feel most beautiful when I’m not being perceived as beautiful,” she says over coffee in Brooklyn a few days after our shoot. “If I’m not thinking about what I look like, then I’m just happy and free to be myself.” Growing up in rural Oxfordshire, “a million miles away from Hollywood or any big city,” she was raised by her English mom, a nurse, and her South African dad, a doctor, to “nurture the soul, spirit, and intelligence rather than the exterior.” That notion has stuck with Mbatha-Raw, so it’s been a process for her to accept the value placed on appearance in the entertainment industry. “I’ve had to come to terms with the concept of beauty without judging it as a vacuous thing,” she says. “My image is part of my job, but I’m getting more comfortable with knowing that it doesn’t define who I am or mean that I’m a superficial person. It’s about expressing yourself.” [More at Source]
Late last year, Gugu Mbatha-Raw received a phone call from her mother. A letter had arrived at the family home in Witney, Oxfordshire. It wasn’t in just any old envelope; this bore a seal, and the words “Her Majesty’s Service”. Mbatha-Raw giggled down the line from Los Angeles. “Mother!’ she said. “It’s the damehood!”
The truth’s not so far removed: when we meet for lunch in London in January, Mbatha-Raw is fresh from a trip to Buckingham Palace to collect an MBE. “It was incredible,” she says sounding wistful, slightly in awe. “A chamber orchestra performed, sun streamed through the windows. Afterwards there was champagne and photos. It felt like a very posh graduation.” Still, if you think she’s wide-eyed about it, you should see her parents: “I think they’re more impressed than they would be if I won an Oscar.”
Awards season and its role in celebrating, or at least promoting, issues of diversity and equality is everywhere when we speak. “As much as people may be critical of those zeitgeisty moments, they have changed awareness,” she says. “Producers and casting directors have had to interrogate their choices, and it’s the same with the women’s movement: people are now calling out who’s not in the room, who’s not represented.”
In many ways, she observes, we’re repurposing awards ceremonies now. As protests? “Yeah, and that’s a good thing. I think we should be using them as ways to have discussions, rather than just treating them as shiny ego boosts for the industry. Because at some point, you have to ask: ‘What are these pats on the back for?’” [More at Source]
As the entertainment director of Stylist, it’s easy for me to say someone is an important name to know. Someone you should commit to memory and follow their career path because what they are doing is versatile, skilled and barrier-breaking. It’s not often the Queen agrees with me (to my chagrin). But this time the Queen does agree with me, recently awarding Gugu Mbatha-Raw – that aforementioned name to know – with an MBE for services to the arts, an honour she received a few weeks ago at Buckingham Palace: the royal seal of approval in its purest form.
Mbatha-Raw, 34, is an actor who has been working hard for years, gradually increasing her profile, proving and improving her talents. It’s interesting that 2018, a momentous year for women, is the year that she will be catapulted into the big time with her ability to command whichever screen she is on. I suspect it’s also of note that she’s an actor who has largely worked with female directors on her biggest roles (except 2016’s sublime Black Mirror series three episode San Junipero), including her breakout role in 2014’s Belle, directed by Amma Asante, and Beyond The Lights by Gina Prince-Bythewood the same year, which both centre on women who want – need – their voices to be heard in very different confines. [More at source]
I’ve updated the gallery with photos of Gugu attending the premiere of her new movie “Fast Color” that premiered in SXSW to an amazing reaction.
Gugu is on the cover of the April issue of British Vogue! She looks amazing photographed by Mikael Jansson and styled by senior contributing fashion editor Kate Phelan, with hair by Eugene Souleiman and make-up by Hannah Murray, the portrait of Mbatha-Raw wearing Valentino, marks Gugu’s Vogue debate. Check out the photos and digital scans and maek sure to watch the video (under a read more cut because it autoplays).
Digital Scans > April 2018 – British Vogue
Photo Sessions > 2018 > Set 006<
For most people, Friday, Feb. 16 was a relatively normal day, if a slightly busier one than usual. The night before, Black Panther hit theaters to much fanfare, and many of us were gearing up for a sunnier-than-normal winter weekend. But for Wrinkle in Time actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Feb. 16 had a special meaning. It was the day she decided that after years of standing back and watching everyone else speak up, she wouldn’t — she couldn’t — stay quiet any longer.
“With everything that’s going on in the world, I felt galvanized and inspired by Time’s Up, and I was starting to question whether I was using my voice as efficiently as I could,” she tells me, when we speak shortly after she joined Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in one fell swoop. “I think as an actress, I’ve always believed maybe an old-fashioned idea that mystique was valuable and all of that stuff in terms of your career and acting,” she continues. “But I just couldn’t deny that what was going on in the world, with the women’s movement especially… it’s better to contribute than shy away and stay silent.”
As one of Hollywood’s most prolific yet enigmatic actors, Mbatha-Raw has spent her career disappearing — into roles, into costumes, seemingly into thin air the moment she’s done promoting a project. Despite her near-constant presence on-screen (in the last five weeks alone, she’s starred in three new movies), fans know little about who she actually is. What she likes, what she believes, what she wants to share with the world have all been a mystery. As her lack of social media showed, there’s long been a thick, impenetrable veil between the actor’s performances and her personal life. [More at source]
On the dreariest, drizzliest of winter days, Gugu Mbatha-Raw — bundled in a cozy ochre sweater and practical wellies — ducks into a Cobble Hill cafe. As she sits down, the clouds momentarily part, revealing a fleeting patch of blue sky. It’s a fitting entrance for the ebullient actress, whose smart British lilt melts easily into laughter — often at her own expense.
“An Emmy fell on my foot,” she confides to Alexa, flashing back to this year’s ceremony, where her buzzy “San Junipero” episode of the Netflix hit “Black Mirror”won two awards, including Outstanding TV Movie. “My foot instantly turned blue. I put an ice pack on it and then took my shoes off and danced — you have to!”
She lets out a conspiratorial giggle, then clarifies that the statuette belonged to the show’s producers. “I don’t have an actual Emmy, but I now have an Emmy scar. I’ll have that forever.”
Mbatha-Raw, 34, also has a full plate of projects. Up next is the big-budget “A Wrinkle in Time,” headlined by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling. In the Disney film, out Thursday, Mbatha-Raw plays Dr. Kate Murry, a physicist whose daughter embarks on a quest through space and time to save her father. [more at source]
The photoshoot video is under cut because it autoplays.
I’ve updated the gallery with photos of Gugu attending the New York screening of a “A Wrinkle Time” that was hosted by O Magazine. Check out the photos in the gallery.
