US-based Zimbabwean actress Danai Gurira’s profile in Hollywood continues to develop after being named among the many stars added within the preliminary spherical of presenters for the 2023 Oscars.

The ninety fifth Academy Awards might be offered on Sunday, in a ceremony held by the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences on the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

The awards will honour movies launched in 2022. The occasion might be televised within the U.S. by ABC and might be produced by Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss.

This time, all 23 classes might be offered stay on the occasion after final yr’s determination to pre-tape eight aggressive classes sparked backlash from trade professionals. That is additionally the primary Oscars since Will Smith infamously slapped presenter Chris Rock throughout final yr’s ceremony.

This yr’s ceremony is about to be particular for US-born Zimbabwean actress Gurira after she was named within the second slate of Academy Award presenters on Tuesday.

Gurira, who portrayed Okoye in “Black Panther: Wakanda Ceaselessly” and Michonne within the standard AMC collection “The Strolling Lifeless,” will take to the stage in the course of the prestigious ceremony.

She was named alongside an all-star listing that features Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek Pinault, Nicole Kidman, Florence Pugh, Sigourney Weaver, Riz Ahmed, Emily Blunt, Glenn Shut, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, and Donnie Yen.

Gurira was born in Iowa within the US to Zimbabwean mother and father Josephine Gurira, a university librarian, and Roger Gurira, a tenured professor within the Division of Chemistry at Grinnell School (each mother and father later joined the employees of College of Wisconsin-Platteville)

Her mother and father moved from then Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, to the US in 1964.

Gurira lived in Grinnell till December 1983, when at age 5 she and her household moved again to Harare.

She attended highschool at Dominican Convent Excessive Faculty within the capital earlier than returning to the US to check at Macalester School in Saint Paul, Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology.

Gurira additionally earned a Grasp of Effective Arts in appearing from New York College’s Tisch Faculty of the Arts.

She rose to fame in 2004, when she starred in a drama collection referred to as Legislation and Order.

In 2018, the identical yr she final visited Zimbabwe for a poaching consciousness marketing campaign, Gurira was appointed United Nations Girls Goodwill Ambassador in a bid to help the UN’s work on gender equality and girls’s rights.

She has additionally featured in Marvel’s blockbuster phenomenon “Black Panther” as Basic Okoye and reprised the function within the movie “Avengers: Infinity Battle”.

Each movies are among the many prime highest-grossing films of all time.

Different choose appearing credit embody the movies “All Eyez on Me” (NAACP Picture Award nomination), “The Customer”, “Mom of George” and the NYS&F’s “Measure for Measure” (Fairness Callaway Award).

Gurira is presently adapting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s e-book Americanah right into a mini-series.