DANAI GURIRA – STUNNING ON THE RED CARPET BLACK PANTHER STARS MARVELOUSLY AT THE 2023 OSCARS

DANAI GURIRA – STUNNING ON THE RED CARPET

BLACK PANTHER STARS MARVELOUSLY AT THE 2023 OSCARS

By Tapfuma Machakaire  14/03/2023

Zimbabwean Hollywood star Danai Gurira has done it again. She was among the stars who presented rewards at the 95^th Academy Awards held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday March 12.

But Gurira had another surprise under her sleeve for the red carpet. Vogue, the leading American fashion magazine summed up her appearance in a headline, Danai Gurira’s Towering Updo Is a Stunning Ode to African Women at the Oscars 2023.

“This is my African self coming out here, you know a tribute to the women who amazingly carry things on their heads with an astounding poise at all times,” said Gurira.

For those not so acquainted with fashion jargon the headline was baffling. An updo is a hairstyle for special events where the hair is pulled up off the shoulders and neck into a specific style and held in place with clips, barrettes or other hair accessories. And that’s how Gurira appeared on the red carpet walking tall in a beautiful black gown, sending a loud statement to African women which Vogue termed, a stunning Ode, you may call it a striking beat.

Gurira appeared on the historic event, the first Oscars since Will Smith infamously slapped presenter Chris Rock during the 2022 ceremony.From the cast of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,Gurira was joined by Angela Bassett and Michael B. Jordan for awards that included Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, as well as Best Visual Effects. The song “Lift Me Up,” performed by Rihanna in the film also won Best Original Song, while Bassett received an Academy Award nod for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role.

Awards for all twenty three categories which honoured films released in 2022 were presented live at the event after last year’s decision to pre-tape eight competitive categories sparked backlash from industry professionals.

The ceremony was televised in the US by ABC and produced by Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss.

For Hollywood enthusiasts, the presence of Gurira was an opportunity to get clarification of a Black Panther spinoff series cantred on her character, Okoye.

Mekishana Pierre‍a New York-based editor and Emmy-winning producer snatched the exclusive with Gurira.

“Danai Gurira isn’t saying there will be a Black Panther spinoff series cantered on her character, Okoye, but she’s not saying there won’t be either!” wrote Piere

“I’ve been told I can speak of it vaguely. So, I will vaguely respond, however, I guess the idea behind the story like that, if one were to exist, would be to explore the character in ways that we haven’t done yet. But who knows?”

Piere says it’s not the first time Gurira’s had to answer for the rumors. “During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in January, Gurira teased that the rumoured spinoff might be close to fruition.”

Okoye was introduced in the first Black Panther film as the head of the Dora Milaje, the all-female Special Forces that protect Wakanda and its royal family. However, in Wakanda Forever, Okoye was dismissed from the Dora after failing to protect Shuri (Letitia Wright) from Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) and the Talokan warriors.

Devastated by the rejection, Okoye returned for the film’s final battle in a new supersuit created by Shuri, officially bringing the Midnight Angels from the comic canon to the big screen, leading many to speculate that the new series could focus on Okoye’s new adventures with the elite group of warriors.

The song “Lift Me Up” which won the best original song serves as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who played King T’Challa, aka Black Panther, and died at the age of 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer.

Gurira introduced Rihanna’s performance of the song by calling the nominated superstar “royalty in her own right.”

Gurira was born in Iowa in the US to Zimbabwean parents Josephine Gurira, a college librarian, and Roger Gurira, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Grinnell College. Her parents moved from then Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, to the United States in 1964.

Gurira lived in Grinnell until December 1983, when at age five she and her family moved back to Harare.

She attended high school at Dominican Convent in the capital before returning to the US to study at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Gurira also earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

She rose to fame in 2004, when she starred in a drama series called Law and Order.

In 2018, the same year she last visited Zimbabwe for a poaching awareness campaign, Gurira was appointed United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador in a bid to support the UN’s work on gender equality and women’s rights.

Gurira is currently adapting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Americanah into a mini-series. Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author. It tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu’s life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie’s third novel, published on May 14 for which Adichie won the 2013 US National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

The sky is certainly the limit for Danai Gurira.