Uzo Aduba is an
Emmy-winning Nigeria-born American actress known for playing Crazy Eyes on the
Netflix series 'Orange Is the New Black.'
Synopsis
Uzo Aduba was born in February
1981 in Boston and went on to attend Boston University on an athletics
scholarship. While there, the voice major fell in love with acting and moved to
New York City after graduation to pursue a career on the stage. After appearing
in Off-Broadway productions, Aduba made her Broadway debut in 2007. But it
would be TV that put her on the map when she landed the role of "Crazy
Eyes" Warren on the popular Netflix series Orange Is the New Black,
a role that would bring fame and acclaim to Aduba's doorstep along with two
Emmy Awards.
Early Years
Uzo Aduba was born on February
10, 1981, in Boston and raised in Medfield, Massachusetts. Growing up, the name
she was given (in full, Uzoamaka) in the Nigerian Igbo tradition caused her
some grief, when kids at school couldn’t pronounce it. When Aduba asked her
mother if she could change it to Zoe, her reply was poignant: “If they can
learn to say Tchaikovsky andMichelangelo and Dostoyevsky,
they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”
After graduating from Medfield
High School, Aduba rode a track and field scholarship to the College of Fine
Arts at Boston University, where she began classical voice training to refine
her “very dramatic soprano,” as she calls it. At BU, she cultivated a love of
the stage, and her acting teachers encouraged her to pursue acting instead or a
vocal career. That encouragement, paired with a growing interest in the stage,
was enough to make her switch gears and move from Massachusetts to New York
City, where she pursued an acting career.
New York Stage
Aduba moved to New York in the
early 2000s. She took on unpaid roles while waiting tables to get a foot in the
door. Before long, though, she found her way to the New York stage, performing
at the Theater for the New City and with the Huntington Theatre Company and the
American Repertory Theater. With the latter, she won an Elliot Norton Award for
Outstanding Musical Performance, and for her work in a Kennedy Center
production ofTranslations of Xhosa, Aduba was nominated for a Helen
Hayes Award.
During this period she segued
into film roles, appearing in shorts such asNotes (2005) and Over
There (2007). Also in 2007, Aduba made the leap to Broadway in Coram
Boy, following up with a role in the hit 2011-2012 revival of Godspell.
Orange Is the New Black
Aduba was on the cusp of the next
stage of advancing in her career, and she past the tipping point when she made
her TV debut in 2012 on the CBS drama Blue Bloods. It was a small
role, but what was waiting on the other side of it wasn’t: a key part on the
new Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black. Set in a
woman’s prison, Orange Is the New Black let Aduba try out a
whole new set of acting skills as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren, a character who
has become something of a cultural phenomenon.
For her work as Crazy Eyes, Aduba has
garnered millions of fans, critical acclaim and industry honors such as a
Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a
Comedy Series and a 2014 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy. She
won another Emmy the following year, this time for Outstanding Supporting
Actress in a Drama Series, making her and Ed Asner the only actors in history to win an Emmy in
both the comedy and drama genres for the same role.
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