Amandla Stenberg

Amandla Stenberg was born in Los Angeles, California, the child of Karen Brailsford, an African-American spiritual counselor and writer, and Tom Stenberg, who is Danish.[5][6][7][8] Her paternal grandmother had Greenlandic Inuit ancestry.[9]

Stenberg has two older half-sisters on her father's side.[10][11] Her first name means "power" or "strength" in the South African languages of IsiXhosa and Zulu.[12]

At age four, Stenberg started doing catalog modeling shoots for Disney.[1] She has appeared in commercials for clients such as Boeing.[13][14] In 2011, she appeared in her first feature film, Colombiana, as a younger version of Zoe Saldana's character.[15] Her breakthrough came when she was cast as Rue in the 2012 film The Hunger Games.[16] In 2013, Stenberg was in the short film Mercy playing the daughter of Robin Thicke and Paula Patton; Thicke directed the film.[17][18] She voiced Bia in the 2014 animated film Rio 2.[19] Stenberg had a recurring role on season one of Sleepy Hollow.[20] In 2015, she played series regular Halle Foster on Mr. Robinson.[21]

In 2013, Stenberg began performing on the violin and singing harmonies at Los Angeles venues with singer-songwriter Zander Hawley. She released her first EP in August 2015 as the folk-rock duo Honeywater. Dazed magazine named Stenberg "one of the most incendiary voices of her generation" when it featured them on its Autumn 2015 cover.[22] Stenberg has spoken publicly on social media about cultural appropriation.[23] Her video "Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows" admonished Kylie Jenner for adopting that traditionally African-American hairstyle.[24]

Stenberg co-wrote the comic book Niobe: She is Life with Sebastian Jones. The book is an offshoot of Jones' graphic novel The Untamed.[25] It is set in a fantasy world and follows the journey of a half elf half human princess.[26] According to Jones, it's the first nationally distributed comic that has a black woman as its protagonist while also having a black woman as the author and another as the artist.[27] Jones wanted Stenberg's help in creating the comic because it revolved around a young female character.[27] The first issue, illustrated by Ashley A. Woods, was published in November 2015.[28][29] In May 2017 the pair released Niobe: She is Death, the second part of the trilogy.[30] In April 2016, Stenberg gave a speech at WE Day California, a WE Charity event.[31]

Stenberg in 2018

In 2017, she starred in the romantic drama Everything, Everything, directed by Stella Meghie,[32][33] and co-starring Nick Robinson. She played the lead in the contemporary drama The Hate U Give (2018), based on the novel of the same name, about the Black Lives Matter movement, and in Amma Asante's World War II drama Where Hands Touch (2018).[34][35]

In May 2019, she joined the cast of Netflix’s The Eddy.[36] The series was released on May 8, 2020.

Stenberg identifies as an intersectional feminist.[28][37] She is outspoken about her political views in interviews and on social media, and was named "Feminist of the Year" in 2015 by the Ms. Foundation for Women.[38][39] In 2016, Stenberg announced via Instagram that she would be studying filmmaking at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[40][41][42] Stenberg did not end up attending the school as she found herself booking jobs and instead chose to continue with her acting career.[43][44][45][46]

Stenberg identifies as non-binary,[47][48][49] and uses both 'she/her/hers' and 'they/their/theirs' pronouns.[50] She has previously said that she was bisexual[23][51][52][53] and pansexual.[54] In June 2018, in an interview with Wonderland magazine, she came out as gay.[55][56] From early 2018 to late 2018, Stenberg dated singer Mikaela Mullaney Straus, better known by her stage name King Princess.[57]

In a July 2017 interview, Stenberg said she had stopped using a smartphone, and that she thought phones and social media can have a negative effect on mental health.[58]

• Amandla Stenberg on IMDb