How Wunmi Mosaku went from Manchester estate to Oscar nomination | Manchester News

As a young child, Wunmi Mosaku always had her sights set on a career in acting, inspired by her love of the 1980s musical Annie.

“I watched Annie every single day after school,” said 39-year-old Mosaku during a recent interview on The Graham Norton Show.

“I said to my mum and sister ‘I don’t want to do maths and economics, I think I want to act’.

“They were like ‘how do you do that’ and I was like ‘I don’t know’.”

To answer her mother’s question, Mosaku decided to Google the cast of her favourite film in search of some much-needed insight into how to break it into the acting industry.

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

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

“That’s the first time I ever heard of drama school so I auditioned for Rada and got in.

“It changed my whole life. I will love that film forever.”

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

She is the only British acting nominee.

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

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

During the press tour for the film last year, Mosaku discussed the lasting impact of embodying the character Annie and how the role continued to resonate with her long after filming had concluded.

“I do think about it deeply, like what did I learn from Sinners? What did I learn from Annie? What did I have to unlearn?,” she said.

“When I feel self-doubt and worry and fear, I do come back to those things a lot

“So every time someone asks me in the moment I think ‘this is where Annie has come in handy today or this is where Sinners has come in handy today’.”

This is not the first time Mosaku’s acting has attracted high acclaim.

In 2016, she won a Bafta TV Award for best supporting actress for her role as Gloria Taylor in the TV film Damilola, Our Loved Boy.

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

Mosaku was 15 years old when she heard the news of his killing.

“I came from Nigeria as a child,” she said during a interview in 2016.

“Until I read the script, I didn’t know how long they’d been in the country for so I thought he was probably just like me, having just started school.

“I thought they were just like the rest of the Nigerian community that I knew in Manchester.

“I grew up on an estate in Manchester and people I’ve known from school have died in gang trouble and I always thought, if I’d been on a different estate at a different time, it could have been me.”

Mosaku’s first professional job was a play called The Great Theatre of the World.

She has starred as Joy in the Two miniseries Moses Jones, Holly Lawson in the ITV series Vera, Det Sgt Catherine Halliday in ‘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 the film Deadpool & Wolverine.

Earlier this month, Mosaku shared an “anti-announcement pregnancy announcement” in British Vogue to get ahead of speculation and questions.

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

“It’s meant to be protected.

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

“The success of Sinners, a project that has gifted me with more than I could imagine, a cast and crew who’ve become like family and the undeniable support of movie goers, has also given me a new visibility.

“I’ll be in the public eye for the coming weeks [during awards season] as we excitedly take our seats amongst our peers, and I will be doing it with an ever-growing bump.”