Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith took the 2019 Olivier for best actor in a musical for Tina in the West End, playing Ike Turner. On screen he has appeared in Justice League, Mary Poppins Returns and Doctor Strange.

Accra to Surrey

Born in Accra, Kobna Kuttah Holdbrook-Smith grew up in Frimley, Surrey, where his parents, Tenu and Henry Andrew, raised him alongside his brother. His family was not keen on acting, but by 18 he had made up his mind, and he graduated from the Guildford School of Acting in 2000.

Stage

His first big lead was Ken in Playboy of the West Indies at the Tricycle Theatre in 2005, followed by the theatre's African-American season. August Wilson is a favourite: Manchester's Royal Exchange cast him as the trumpeter Levee in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in 2006, and four years later he led the Young Vic's Joe Turner's Come and Gone in the role of Herald Loomis. He made his Globe debut in 2007, has appeared in four National Theatre productions including Edward II, and in 2015 played Laertes to Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet at the Barbican.

Screen

His TV work runs from Judge John Deed in 2002 through Little Britain, Star Stories, Holby City, Silk, Father Brown, The Split and Red Election. In film he was Father Richard Emery in Ghost Stories, Crispus Allen in Justice League (both 2017), and in 2018 alone he appeared in Gwen as Doctor Wren, in The Commuter as Oliver and in Mary Poppins Returns as Templeton Frye.