Join us for a screening of Orange is the New Black (Season 3, Espisode 10) followed by a Q&A with Uzo Aduba.
Moderated by Emma Brown, Interview Magazine.
PANELIST BIO
A formidable talent to be reckoned with, Uzo Aduba is a two-time Emmy Award winning actress whose work spans television, film and theatre.
Aduba currently stars as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in the critically acclaimed Netflix Original Series Orange is the New Black. Daniel Feinberg from Hitfix said of her performance “...the character took a permanent place as an audience favorite, delivering one priceless and revelatory moment after another.” For her performance, she won the 2015 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series” and the 2014 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy.” Aduba joined Ed Asner to become only the second actor ever to win Emmys for the same role in the comedy and drama categories. Additionally, Aduba won the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award for “Outstanding Actress in a Comedy,” was a part of OINTB’s win for “Best Ensemble in a Comedy,” and won the 2014 Broadcast Television Journalists Association Award for "Best Guest Performer in a Comedy." With her SAG and 2014 Emmy honors, she became the first African American actress to win the award in each category. She was also nominated for the 2015 Golden Globe Award for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series, or TV Movie." The series’ third season premiered on June 12, 2015 and will return for a 4th season on Netflix in 2016.
Aduba was recently cast in NBC’s production of The Wiz Live! as Glinda the Good Witch. Directed by Kenny Leon and produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, the production will also star Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Ne-Yo, Amber Riley, and David Alan Grier. The Wiz Live! will air on Thursday, December 3.
Aduba will next make her West End Theatre debut in The Jamie Lloyd Company's contemporary adaptation of Jean Genet's The Maids. Directed by Lloyd, the play will also star Laura Carmichael and Zawe Ashton. In a luxurious bedroom, two maids (Aduba and Ashton) fantasize about killing their employer (Carmichael), playing out dangerous and sadistic scenarios as they plan her violent death. The play runs from February 20, to May 21, at the Trafalgar Studios.
In film, Aduba recently wrapped production on Ewan McGregor’s American Pastoral alongside McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, and Dakota Fanning. The drama is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Philip Roth. Aduba recently wrapped production on Sian Heder’s Tallulah alongside Ellen Page, Allison Janey, and Zachary Quinto and Michael Wilson’s Showing Roots alongside Maggie Grace. The film is about a small Southern town in 1977 whose balance is turned upside down when the slavery miniseries Roots hits the airwaves. Aduba and Grace will play two denizens of a local beauty parlor who are inspired by the Alex Haley adaptation to integrate their community, only to see pent-up racial tensions erupt in the process.
Aduba made her television debut in 2012 on the hit CBS show Blue Bloods.
Before starring on television, Aduba made her Broadway debut in Coram Boy in 2007 followed by the hit musical revival of Godspell in 2011. She discovered her talent for singing at a very early age and became a classical music major at the Boston University School of Fine Arts. Work in theatre quickly followed with critically acclaimed performances at both The Huntington Theatre in Boston and A.R.T. where, under the direction of Dianne Paulus, she won the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Aduba was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play for her work in the Kennedy Center/Olney Theater production of Translations of Xhosa. Other theater credits include Dessa Rose at the New Repertory Theatre, Turnado: Rumble for the Ring at the Papermill Playhouse, and Absynnia at the Goodspeed Theatre.
Past films include the independent shorts Over There and Notes.
Aduba currently resides in New York City.
