Yvonne Orji


Yvonne Anuli Orji is a Nigerian-American actress and comedian. She is best known for her role as Molly in the HBO series Insecure, for which she earned a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2020.

Biography

Orji was born on 2 December 1983, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, and grew up in Laurel, Maryland in the United States. She spent her high school career in the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania where she attended Linden Hall, the oldest all-girls boarding school in the country. She received a master's degree in public health at George Washington University. Orji's parents expected her to become a doctor, lawyer, pharmacist, or engineer. However, she was inspired to do comedy as a graduate student when she performed stand-up in the talent portion of a beauty pageant.
After graduate school, in 2009, Orji moved to New York City to pursue a career in comedy. In 2015, she landed the role of Molly on Insecure without an agent or any real acting experience.

Personal life

Orji is a devout Christian and has stated that she will remain a virgin until marriage.
She performed at TEDxWilmingtonSalon in 2017, titled "The wait is sexy" on YouTube. In the talk, she explains her reasons for abstaining from sex before marriage.

Charitable Efforts

Outside of her creative work, she is dedicated to philanthropy. In 2008 and 2009 she spent six months working in post-conflict Liberia, with Population Services International, an NGO that utilizes social marketing in the adoption of healthy behaviors. While in Liberia, she worked with a group of talented youth to help build a mentoring program as well as a weekly talk show that helped educate and prevent against the spread of teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. She currently lends her time and voice as a R Ambassador, a Literacy Champion for Jumpstart and working with JetBlue for Good.

Filmography

Awards and nominations