Zawe Ashton is a British dramatist and actor. Her most well-known performances are from the Netflix horror movie Velvet Buzzsaw, the comedic drama Fresh Meat, and the 2011 film Dreams of a Life.
She recently appeared in The Marvels as Dar-Benn as well. Despite being active in the entertainment industry for over two decades, not much is known about her.
As a result, people are often questioning her about her family, including her parents and siblings. Zawe rarely talks about them, and her family also led a low-key life.
Here is all we know about it.
Zawe Ashton’s family — parents and siblings
Zawe was born on July 25, 1984, in Hackney, London. As a result, her nationality is English.
She was born to an English father, Paul Ashton, and a Ugandan mother, Victoria Ashton. She has two siblings — a brother Sam Ashton and a sister Amy Ashton.
Zawe’s maternal grandfather, Paulo Muwanga, served as Uganda’s president and then prime minister. Talking about her parents, the actress mentioned that they met at a Christmas Party.
She shared the story with The Guardian in 2016. Victoria came to England from Uganda when she was a teenager. She studied and grew up to teach design and technology.
At the same time, Zawe’s father, Paul, who was the first one from his family to go to university, was teaching English. Soon after the duo met, they started dating and fell in love.
Later, Paul retired as a teacher and then moved to Channel 4 to commission education programs for teachers. From 1983 to 1991, Paul was employed by the BBC as a television producer, principal assistant, and education officer.
Following that, he began an 11-year career as a school editor for Channel 4. A memoir-titled article was written by one of his coworkers.
Zawe Ashton’s family leads a low-key life. (Source: Twitter)
According to that article (via New Stars), Paul joined the channel in September 1991 and was its first school editor, according to the report. Under the Communications Act of 1990, the school broadcast was moved from ITV to Channel 4, where Paul and his deputy editor launched the new program.
In essence, they were permitted to spend the £10 million a year they received for school television. His employment came with a little feeling of glamour, a fat paycheck, and a sense of duty, knowing that he and his buddy were educating the country’s youth and giving educators the tools they needed to live more comfortable and satisfying lives.
For the benefit of educators and their pupils, they employed all television genres that inform, educate, and amuse the general public. Paul left to work on a post-commission project on new computer-based media for schools in the fall of 1999, and his friend filled his place.
Regardless, they continued to collaborate and work together. Zawe’s father also worked as the editor-in-chief of Teachers TV.
Zawe and her siblings were raised in London with their family, where they went to a local state school. Not much is known about her siblings.
It is reported that her brother, Sam, was employed as an illustrator and graphic artist. Amy, her sister, has kept her life private and hasn’t disclosed any personal information, therefore, nothing is known about her.
Zawe started acting from a very young age and was supported by her family. She was a member of the National Youth Theatre and started attending the Anna Scher Theatre School when she was six years old.
She attended Manchester Metropolitan University to earn her degree in acting. Zawe was going through a difficult time when she initially entered the acting industry.
She had to postpone her studies in order to care for her mother, who had cancer. Fortunately, her mother fully recovered, and she gives her parents a lot of credit for inspiring a lot of her work.
They are Zawe’s “favorite double act” in comedy, she told The Guardian, adding that her father is a “brilliant writer” who encouraged her to pursue playwriting.
Zawe Ashton’s career in acting and writing
Zawe started her career in acting in the late 90s and is active to date. Regarding acting, she works actively in Broadway, television series, and movies.
Her Broadway credits include Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London and the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York. She has also worked on Othello and Frontline at the Globe Theatre, All The Little Things We Crushed at Almeida, This Wide Night at Soho Theatre, Michael Frayn’s comedy Here at Royal Court, Abi Morgan’s Splendour at Donmar Warehouse, Jean Genet’s The Maids at Trafalgar Studios, and Salome at Headlong Theatre / Hampstead Theatre.
Zawe won second place in the Ian Charleson Awards for her classical performance in Salome in June 2010.
Her television credits include Journey Blue in Doctor Who, Vod in the Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat, Claire in the six-part BBC One / Netflix series Wanderlust; and Katherine in the Channel 4 series Not Safe For Work.
She made two appearances in The Demon Headmaster as a kid. All in all, she has worked in 21 TV shows to date.
Zawe has worked on 11 movies to date. Some of her film credits include Velvet Buzzsaw, Dreams of a Life, directed by Carol Morley, for which she was nominated in the Most Promising Newcomer category at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards, St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, Blitz, Nocturnal Animals, directed by Tom Ford, and Greta.
In February 2021, it was revealed that she would portray a villain in The Marvels. The movie was released on November 10, 2023, where she played the role of Dar-Benn, a Kree warrior revolutionary wielding an Accuser’s hammer and an identical bangle to Kamala Khan or Ms. Marvel.
In 2016 and 2017, Zawe provided the narration for thirteen episodes of Channel 4’s 24 Hours in Police Custody. In 2017, she provided the narration for the same channel’s documentary Public Enemies: Jay-Z vs. Kanye.
In collaboration with Arts Council England, Zawe hosted the third season of Channel 4’s short film exhibition, Random Acts, in 2017.
The Young Hollywood Issue of Nylon magazine featured the actress as one of the “55 faces of the future” in May 2010. She received the “Ultimate Newcomer” prize from Cosmopolitan magazine during their Women of the Year celebration in October 2012.
For her performance as Vod in the BAFcTA-nominated Channel 4 blockbuster Fresh Meat, Zawe won the Creative Diversity Network Award for Best Breakthrough On-Screen Talent in November 2012. For her leading part in Dreams of a Life, she was honored with a 2013 Screen Nation Award for Female Performance in a Film 2012/2013.
Zawe is not only an actress but also a writer.
At the age of seventeen, she started competing in poetry slams. In 2000, she won the London Poetry Slam Championship.
She was the Manchester Contact Theatre’s Young Writer in Residence in 2006. Her debut play, Harm’s Way, had its premiere at the Lowry in Salford in 2008 as part of the National Youth Theatre’s new writing season after being shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award in 2007.
Her previous piece She from the Sea was presented in 2010 at the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), and Skunk was presented by the National Youth Theatre and Soho Theatre. Zawe co-wrote the Bush Futures Program’s Sudden Loss of Dignity website.
For All the Women Who Thought They Were Mad, one of her plays was chosen to participate in the 2009 Royal Court Playwriting Festival. Zawe wrote a portion of The Children’s Monologues, which Dramatic Need performed in 2010 and which was adapted from more than 300 original stories written by Tswana, Zulu, and Sesotho children in South Africa.
She has performed with both the Clean Break theatrical group and the Bush theatrical. Character Breakdown, a fictionalized memoir based on Zawe’s experiences as an actor, was released in 2019 as her debut book.
In July 2021, she was chosen to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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