Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw MBE ( born 21 April 1983) is a British actress who is known for her performances on stage and screen. In 2017 she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama. In February 2021, Mbatha-Raw was appointed a global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Mbatha-Raw started her career in theatre training at the National Youth Theatre and the Royal School of Dramatic Art. She gained acclaim for her roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Octavia in Anthony and Cleopatra in 2005 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. She made her West End and Broadway debut portraying Ophelia in Hamlet in 2009. For her role as the titular character in Jessica Swale’s 2015 play Nell Gwynn earned her a nomination for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress.

After a minor role in Larry Crowne (2011), she made her breakthrough with the British period drama Belle (2013), for which she won the BIFA Award for Best Actress. Her career progressed with roles in the films Beyond the Lights (2014), Miss Sloane (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), A Wrinkle in Time (2018), Motherless Brooklyn (2019), Misbehaviour (2020), and Summerland (2020).

Her early television roles include in Doctor Who (2007), and the short-lived NBC’s series Undercovers (2010) and FOX’s Touch (2012). She gained acclaim starring in the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” (2016) which received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie. She’s also acted in the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show (2019), and the Disney+ series Loki (2021).

Anthony Dwane Mackie (born September 23, 1978)[1][2][3] is an American actor. Mackie made his film debut starring in the semi-biographical drama film 8 Mile (2002). He was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor for his performance in the LGBT drama Brother to Brother (2004), and in the same year, appeared in psychological thriller The Manchurian Candidate and the sports film Million Dollar Baby. Mackie starred in Half Nelson (2006); in 2008, Mackie both appeared in the action thriller Eagle Eye, and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Hurt Locker. He portrayed Tupac Shakur in Notorious (2009), and later starred in Night Catches Us (2010), and The Adjustment Bureau and Real Steel (both 2011).

He achieved global recognition for portraying Sam Wilson / Falcon / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and most recently starring in the Disney+ miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021); he is set to lead his own film titled Captain America: New World Order (2024). During this period, Mackie also starred in the period crime film Detroit (2017), The Hate U Give (2018), the horror film Synchronic (2019), and The Banker (2020).

Away from film, Mackie has performed in Broadway and Off-Broadway adaptations, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Drowning Crow, McReele, A Soldier’s Play and Carl Hancock Rux’s Talk, for which he won an Obie Award in 2002. Mackie portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the HBO television film All the Way (2016), and portrayed Takeshi Kovacs in Netflix series Altered Carbon (2020).

Career

Mackie at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
In 2002, Mackie worked as an understudy to Don Cheadle in Suzan-Lori Parks’ play Topdog/Underdog and won an OBIE Award for his role in Carl Hancock Rux’s play Talk. He appeared in the 2002 film 8 Mile as the main antagonist, Papa Doc. His first starring role in a feature film was the 2003 independent film Brother to Brother, where he played Perry, a young artist who struggles to adjust to the world as a gay black man. The following year, Mackie appeared in Million Dollar Baby, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and starred in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me. In 2006, Mackie starred in Half Nelson, Crossover, and We Are Marshall.[13][14]

In March 2008, Mackie starred in three plays by playwright August Wilson at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, and Jitney – all part of “August Wilson’s 20th Century”, a month-long presentation of ten staged readings of Wilson’s “Century Cycle”. Mackie has participated several times in the “24-Hour Plays” held in New York City each fall.[15] In mid-2009, he played the role of Pentheus in the New York City Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of The Bacchae.[16] He starred with Christopher Walken in A Behanding in Spokane on Broadway in February 2010.[17]

Simone Arianne Biles (/sɪˈmoʊn ˈbaɪəlz/; born March 14, 1997)[4] is an American artistic gymnast. Her seven Olympic medals tied with Shannon Miller for the most Olympic medals won by an American gymnast and is the equal ninth-most overall. Having won 25 World Championship medals, she is the most decorated gymnast in the history of the Gymnastics World Championships, and is considered by many sources to be the greatest gymnast of all time.[5] In 2022, Biles was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.[6]
At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Biles won individual gold medals in the all-around, vault, and floor; bronze on balance beam; and gold as part of the United States team, dubbed the “Final Five”.[7] At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where Biles was favored to win at least four of the six available gold medals, she withdrew from most of the competition due to struggles with “the twisties”, a temporary loss of air balance awareness. She ultimately won a silver medal with the US team and a bronze medal on the balance beam. Her partial withdrawal, focus on safety, mental health, and perseverance were praised. She is also a five-time World all-around champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019), five-time World floor exercise champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019), three-time World balance beam champion (2014–2015, 2019), two-time World vault champion (2018–2019), a seven-time United States national all-around champion (2013–2016, 2018–2019, 2021), and a member of the gold medal-winning American teams at the 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She is also a three-time World silver medalist (2013 and 2014 on vault, 2018 on uneven bars) and a three-time World bronze medalist (2015 on vault, 2013 and 2018 on balance beam).
Biles is the gymnast with the most World medals (25) and most World gold medals (19), having surpassed Vitaly Scherbo’s record 23 World medals by winning her 24th and 25th, both gold, at the 2019 competition in Stuttgart.[8] She is the female gymnast with the most World all-around titles (5). She is the sixth woman to win an individual all-around title at both the World Championships and the Olympics, and the first gymnast since Lilia Podkopayeva in 1996 to hold both titles simultaneously. She is the tenth female gymnast and first American female gymnast to win a World medal on every event, and the first female gymnast since Daniela Silivaș in 1988 to win a medal on every event at a single Olympic Games or World Championships, having accomplished this feat at the 2018 World Championships in Doha.[8]

Viola Davis (/vaɪˈoʊl.ə/; born August 11, 1965) is an
Viola Davis -Role
Nurse Anesthetist – Jenny American actress and producer. The recipient of numerous accolades, Davis is one of the few performers to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT); additionally, she is the sole African-American to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting[1][a] as well as the third person to achieve both statuses.[b] Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017,[2][3] and in 2020, The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.[4][5]
Davis began her career in Central Falls, Rhode Island, appearing in small stage productions. After graduating from the Juilliard School in 1993, she won an Obie Award in 1999 for her performance as Ruby McCollum in Everybody’s Ruby. She played minor roles in film and television in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before earning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Tonya in the 2001 Broadway production of August Wilson’s King Hedley II. Her film breakthrough came with her role as a troubled mother in the drama Doubt (2008), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Davis won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s play Fences.[6]
For starring as a 1960s housemaid in the comedy-drama The Help (2011), Davis received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. From 2014 to 2020, she played lawyer Annalise Keating in the ABC drama series How to Get Away with Murder, for which she became the first black actress to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2015.[7] In 2016, Davis reprised the role of Maxson in the film adaptation of Fences,[8] winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.[9][10] She played Amanda Waller in the DC Extended Universe, beginning with Suicide Squad (2016). In 2020, she portrayed Ma Rainey in the biopic Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, for which she received a fourth Academy Award nomination, becoming the most-Oscar-nominated black actress. Her performances in Widows (2018) and The Woman King (2022) earned her further nominations for the BAFTA Best Actress Award, making her the most-BAFTA-nominated black actress.[11]
Davis and her husband, Julius Tennon, are founders of a production company, JuVee Productions. Davis is also widely recognized for her advocacy and support of human rights and equal rights for women and women of color.[12] She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017 and became a L’Oréal Paris ambassador in 2019.[13] The audiobook narration of her 2022 memoir Finding Me earned Davis a Grammy Award in 2023.[14][15]

Ser’Darius William Blain (born March 10, 1987) is a Haitian-American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Anthony “Fridge” Johnson in the Jumanji film series, appearing in the third and fourth entries. Blain is also recognized for his portrayal of Galvin Burdette in the first season of The CW series Charmed.
Early life
Blain started acting at the age of twelve when he helped his mother rewrite the script for a school play. His mother, a middle school English and drama teacher, cast him in the lead which caused him to “catch the bug”. Blain credits this with overcoming his shyness, “l was a super shy boy to the point where I’d hold on to my mother’s skirt as a little boy…I’d always watched TV and wondered what that must
Supporting – Colleague, Ted Wilder be like”. In 2007, his girlfriend convinced him to attend Actors, Models & Talent For Christ which got him into New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts where he met his agent DebraLynn Findon.
Career
He graduated from NYC in 2009 and since then earned roles in films such as Camp X-Ray and When the Game Stands Tall.[2] Blain played Anthony “Fridge” Johnson in the sequel Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017),[3] and appeared in director James Kicklighter’s short film Angel of Anywhere, starring Briana Evigan and David A. Gregory.[4]
In February 2018, Blain was cast in a regular role for the first season of The CW’s fantasy drama series Charmed, a reboot of the 1998 series of the same name. The reboot “centers on three sisters in a college town who discover they are witches.”[5] Blain played the role of Galvin, a scientist and the boyfriend of Macy Vaughn (played by Madeleine Mantock), one of the sisters in the series.[6][7]

Chancelor Johnathan Bennett (born April 16, 1993), known professionally as Chance the Rapper, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Chicago, Bennett released his debut mixtape 10 Day in 2012. He began to gain mainstream recognition in 2013 after releasing his second mixtape, Acid Rap.[3] He then released his third mixtape, Coloring Book in 2016, which garnered further critical acclaim and attention. It earned him three Grammy Awards, including the award for Best Rap Album; upon winning, it became the first streaming-only album to win a Grammy Award, and peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200.[4] His debut studio album The Big Day was released in 2019.[5][6]

In addition to his solo career, Bennett is a member of the Chicago collective Savemoney, and is the vocalist for the band the Social Experiment. They released the album Surf in 2015, led by trumpeter Nico Segal.[7] He is also involved in social activism in the Chicago area where he lives.[8]

Early life
Chancelor Bennett was born in Chicago.[9] His father, Ken Williams-Bennett, was an aide to the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington and then-Senator Barack Obama.[10] His mother, Lisa Bennett,[11] worked for the Illinois Attorney General.[12] Bennett grew up in the middle-class neighborhood of West Chatham on Chicago’s South Side.[13] When Bennett was sixteen, his father began to work in the Department of Labor during President Barack Obama’s first term.[14][15] Bennett personally met President Obama in his youth and discussed his aspirations to be a rapper, to which Obama responded with “word”.[16] Bennett was originally going to move to Washington, D.C., following Obama’s win in the 2008 presidential election, though those plans eventually fell through.[17] Bennett attended Jones College Prep High School where he was a member of the Jewish Student Union.[18]

Bennett’s interest in music began with Michael Jackson, who he exclusively listened to on cassettes until the fifth grade.[19] Growing up, Bennett’s parents were constantly playing music, including Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke and other artists in the jazz and gospel genres.[20] Bennett began listening to hip-hop after hearing “Through the Wire” by Kanye West on the radio while walking through Hyde Park, Chicago. After finding out the song was on West’s debut album The College Dropout, Bennett purchased the album, making it the first hip-hop album that Bennett listened to.[21] Bennett considers West a huge influence on him and has said that he was inspired to begin rapping by West.[22][23][21] Bennett and West met each other in August 2014 at Bonnaroo Music Festival.[24]

Bennett began rapping in the sixth grade when his cousin let him start using his studio.[25] In his freshman year at Jones College Prep High School, Bennett formed the hip-hop duo Instrumentality alongside a friend.[26] Many of Chance’s earliest performances took place at the YOUmedia Lyricist Loft at Harold Washington Library in Chicago.[27] After placing second in a local songwriting contest, Bennett met then-Chicago Mayor, Richard M. Daley who enjoyed his music.[17] Bennett spent most of his junior year and a small amount of his senior year writing a draft for his debut project, 10 Day,[28] which was later released after Bennett was suspended for ten days after being caught smoking cannabis.[29]