Gugu Mbatha-Raw
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Age: 26
Hometown: Witney, West Oxfordshire, not far from Oxford, where Mbatha-Raw was born the only child of a South African doctor (surname Mbatha) and English mother (surname Raw).
Currently: Cutting an Ophelia opposite Jude Law's Hamlet that is unusual (and commendable) in its stillness. This is a young woman whose grief seems to destroy her from within rather than prompting the more customary histrionic excess. Michael Grandage's modern-dress, austere production of Hamlet.
Taking Pride: Mbatha-Raw's first name is short for Gugulethu, which in Zulu means "our pride," and the 2004 RADA graduate should be proud of her career ascent in the five years since she left the prestigious London drama school. In her first year at RADA, she was one of several students who played Isabella in Measure For Measure, but Hamlet marks both her West End debut and her first professional Shakespearean gig in London. Was it hard to take on this play—and part—having first seen Hamlet performed with Ben Whishaw at the Old Vic and then with David Tennant at Stratford? "It's such a totally different thing when you approach a role from the inside, actually getting under the skin of a character,” she says, “rather than as a more objective audience member. I think you sort of have to discover it for yourself."...