Danai Gurira
I'm a storyteller. 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. That's something I'm so thankful for.Collection: Thankful
We moved to Zimbabwe when I was five, some years after Zimbabwe had gained independence.Collection: Independence
We are used to women's narratives being defined through the male perspective. I challenge that as a concept.
I grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe. And I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I felt that I was kind of this outspoken girl, I was considered. I was a girl who talked a lot and didn't think my voice had any less value than anyone around me. Apparently, that was strange.
Actors may not realize the extent of their own power. Acting is creation. It's them bringing their own stuff, letting it marinate in their soul, in their creative engine.
I love writing for other actors, women of African descent and people who are generally underrepresented.
It's something I've constantly found shocking - all this astounding talent amongst black women that never gets to be seen or heard.
You Americans, you have no idea how much your stuff infiltrates the rest of the world!
I've always been attracted to action stuff.
I hate horror movies! I avoid them like the plague. I don't like getting scared.
My artistic spirit is not nurtured by blogospheres.
A zombie apocalypse isn't the most jovial situation.
Back in the day, I used to read 'Archie,' but I haven't been a comic book aficionado.
I got an M.F.A. in acting from NYU, and part of our training is to learn how to use swords in combat situations in a performance and Shakespeare plays where you have to fight.
I've always been extremely physically active.
I don't care about the quality of the film as a whole, but I loved 'Salt.' I loved it!
I always used to say hybrids would rule the world - people who have an understanding of many cultures and can relate to them with ease. And then along came Obama.
Zimbabweans are so smart and witty and able to weave together tons of situations and experiences into terminologies that are just utterly original.
I create fictional narratives, but it's based on literal people.
You look at women like Lena Dunham, you look at how women are kind of crafting their own space on the screen. I want to add to that.
I'm all about getting the training. Don't roll out of bed and say, 'I can do this.'
I like to focus on stories that need to be told and are not told enough. When I get bit by that bug, and the story is saying, 'You must tell me,' I then go through a process which is often painful and arduous, and long - and joyful! - of submitting to the story until I prove a worthy enough vessel to get it out.
I'm not only a person of color, I'm also a woman. And I'm not only a woman, I'm also a woman from the Third World. All those elements put together means I have a lot to do.
You have to remember that you are part of a craft, and you are constantly building your craft. Ultimately, we are artists, so it comes from us. And I think the tricky thing about being an actor is that we're looking for someone else to give us something... Thinking like an artist and thinking like an out-of-work actor are two different things.
I call myself Zimerican. I was born in the Midwest to Zimbabwean parents. My father was a professor at Grinnell College in Iowa.
I was in a very multi-racial, multi-cultural schooling system. I had a really delightful childhood. I was a jock. I became a very competitive swimmer in Zimbabwe. I was a swimmer, a tennis player, a hockey player. Then, when I was 13, I joined a Children's Performing Arts workshop in Zimbabwe.
I went to Macalester in Minnesota to study social psychology, the study of why people do what they do. I was really looking at race, population, gender, and how we psychologically function in a way that affects our societal outcomes around those issues.
Why can't black women on stage tell stories that can affect white men in the audience?
I never consider myself a minority. I see people who look like me in Barbados, in Trinidad, in Haiti, in London, and in Brooklyn. So I don't know what the heck anyone means when they call me a 'minority.' There's something about that word to me. It just minimalizes people.
If a story is telling a truth, then why shouldn't it affect everybody?
I work with writers whom I believe to be true storytellers. And because I'm a writer, I pay very keen attention to their vision. I find that so fueling creatively because, in telling those stories, you use everything you've got. You come away with battle scars. It's gratifying and invigorating.
I'm a child of academics.
I want to see women of African descent shine.
If my work is on the stage, you can be rested assured I'm going to make use of it as a platform for activism as much as possible.
I want women and girls of African descent and of color to be able to not have to keep searching for stories about themselves.
I went to grad school because I wanted to learn the rules so I would know how to break them. Breaking the rules is saying, 'I'm breaking in, OK? I'm breaking in your very comfortable little house over here, and I'm going to take a room.'
I often feel like a nutty professor, like I'm going to try this experiment and see if it works. My hypothesis is, people in the West can absorb African women stories without any shaken or stirred mixer. It can come directly from the source.
There’s a saying in Africa, if you give a woman empowerment, you empower a community, you empower men, you empower man. When women become empowered and live in their strength it’s beneficiary to others, and I think as young women today we sometimes forget that we are standing on the struggle of other women. Those women had to stand up to make a change, and they were not popular, and now we’re making them unpopular again.Collection: Struggle
If you're a fighter, you recognize a fighter.Collection: Fighter
People with nothing to hide don't usually feel the need to say so.Collection: People
The best characters are always wretchedly flawedCollection: Character
I write about African women, that's really my topic. I have no shame or qualm in it because it's a very underrepresented topic, which is part of the reason I started to write.Collection: Writing
My assumption is I'm not going to be recognized. But when I am, I'm like, "Dang, you know who I am?" I always think I look so different.Collection: Thinking
All the struggles that were fought for here in the United States for African Americans, you now enjoy the privileges of. You now come here and can enjoy privileges that were fought for by African Americans over several generations.Collection: Struggle
My favorite TV shows are Orange Is the New Black, House of Cards, Modern Family, and Veep.Collection: House Of Cards
I just feel like it's fascinating to me just watching my own family, seeing my cousins have children here, seeing the generations go on, and seeing how people are still very connected to their home, but are actually, of course, Americans too. That sort of a hybrided sense of self is something that I yearn to see more of expressed.Collection: Cousin