An actress raised on a Chorlton estate has been nominated for an Oscar
Wunmi Mosaku has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Sinners.
Sinners tells the story of two twin brothers who return to their home town to try and leave their troubled pasts behind, only to discover a greater evil there. In the supernatural horror, Wunmi plays Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner connected to the spirit world.
Mosaku was born in 1986 in Nigeria, to Yoruba parents who were both professors – but left at the age of one, when her family emigrated to Manchester. Growing up in Chorlton she sang in the Manchester Girls Choir, and wanted to become an opera singer.
Her father, a professor of architecture, moved back to Nigeria to live, while Mosaku and her mother stayed in the UK.
She auditioned at RADA, deciding to become an actress so the story goes after watched the 1980s musical Annie religiously, telling her mother and sister she wanted to act instead of studying mathematics and economics. When her family asked how someone becomes an actor, she admitted she had no idea. So she Googled the cast of her favourite film, and one name jumped out: Albert Finney, who grew up in Salford
Finney attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art which introduced her to drama school for the first time. She auditioned for RADA and got in at the first attempt
Wunmi starred opposite Idris Elba in Luther and portrayed B-15 in the Loki TV series and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Her first role was in 2009 BBC2 drama Moses Jones, and eight years later her performance as Gloria in Damilola, Our Loved Boy, the mother of a ten-year-old boy named Damilola who was stabbed to death on a London estate in 2000, won her a BAFTA in 2017, making her the second Black woman to win a BAFA in the history of the awards.
