Nikki Amuka-Bird


Nikki Amuka-Bird is a Nigerian-born British actress of the stage, television and film.

Early life

Amuka-Bird was born in Delta, Nigeria, where her father still lives. She left there as a young child with her mother and was brought up in England and in Antigua. Attending boarding-school in Britain, Amuka-Bird originally hoped to be a dancer. That ambition was thwarted by injury:
I hurt my back and at that point was deciding what to do university-wise and I thought I would try for drama college because I knew you could do some dancing there but it didn’t have to take over everything. It was only really when I went to drama college that that world opened up to me and I fell in love with it and became obsessed like everybody else.
She went to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and subsequently performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Career

Amuka-Bird's theatrical credits include Welcome to Thebes ; Twelfth Night ; World Music ; Top Girls ; A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest and The Servant of Two Masters ; .
Her film credits include The Omen, Cargo, Almost Heaven as well as the screen adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's novel The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. On television, Amuka-Bird has appeared in Spooks, The Line of Beauty, The Last Enemy, Robin Hood, Torchwood, and a recurring role in the reimagined BBC apocalyptic series Survivors. In 2010 she appeared as Det. Supt Gaynor Jenkins in the BBC's Silent Witness.
She appeared in Small Island, the BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, broadcast in December 2009. In June 2016 it was announced that she and Phoebe Fox would star in the production of Zadie Smith's novel NW. It was broadcast on BBC Two on 14 November 2016 and Amuka-Bird received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress.
On Christmas Day 2017 she was heard as the voice of the Glass Woman in the Doctor Who Christmas Special "Twice Upon a Time" broadcast on BBC One.
She is currently playing the role of Rav Mulclair, Head of Judd Mission Control, in HBO's Avenue 5

Filmography

Film

Television