Who is new Luther star Wunmi Mosaku?
The Bafta-winning actress made her name in Damilola, Our Loved Boy, and was also part of the cast of Channel 4 drama Kiri
Luther has a new sidekick: actor Wunmi Mosaku is joining the cast of the BBC1 crime drama for series five.
The star has had an impressive career, winning a Best Supporting Actress Bafta in 2017 for her role in the BBC's Damilola, Our Loved Boy.
Find out more about her performances to date below.
Who is Wunmi Mosaku?
32-year-old British Nigerian actress Wunmi Mosaku graduated from drama school Rada in 2007.
Her first major role came in 2009 BBC2 drama Moses Jones alongside Shaun Parkes.
Then, in 2010, she led the cast of Channel 4 TV movie I Am Slave, and was named one of the Seven Fresh Faces of the Toronto International Film Festival for her role as a girl kidnapped in Sudan and sold into slavery.
Roles in TV dramas including BBC1's Capital and BBC2's Dancing on the Edge followed, along with an appearance in Netflix Black Mirror episode Playtest.
But it was her 2017 role in one-off BBC drama Damilola, Our Loved Boy that really established Mosaku as a star to be reckoned with.
She played Gloria Taylor, the mother of Damilola, the ten-year-old boy stabbed to death on a London estate in 2000. The drama tells the story of the Taylor parents' fight for justice for their son.
The role won her best supporting actress at the 2017 Bafta TV Awards, becoming only the second black woman to win a Bafta in the awards' 62-year history.
“The scary thing is that I sometimes think, ‘Oh, I’ve won a Bafta. This could be the top of the precipice,’” she told the Telegraph afterwards – but it doesn't seem that way.
She followed that performance up with a leading role in ITV crime thriller Fearless, appeared in Channel 4 and Netflix comedy The End of the F***ing World, and kicked off 2018 with another police role in Channel 4 drama Kiri, written by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne.
Now, she's set to star opposite Idris Elba in BBC1 police drama Luther – and, yes, that means another police role for Mosaku.
"It's really hard," Mosaku told RadioTimes.com, "because if you read a good script and the part you fit into is the police officer, it's like, do you give up a really good story and a really great opportunity because it's a police officer again? I wouldn't want to."
Is Mosuku ready for the level of gore in Luther?
"I'm cool with it when I see it all being put on," she said. "I'm not very good at watching it, I don't like watching thrillers... but I'm good on set. On set I can see blood and I'm like, 'Ooh, squished banana.' But when it actually comes down to watching it, I'm completely different."
Don't worry: if all the gruesome stuff gets a bit much, there's always CBeebies. Mosaku has joined the likes of Tom Hardy, David Tennant and Chris Evans as one of CBeebies' Bedtime Story readers. Check out her tale below...
