Chipo Chung

Chipo Chung
Chipo Chung
Born 1977
Tanzania
Occupation Actress, activist

Chipo Chung (born 1977) is a Tanzanian-born actress raised in Zimbabwe.[1] She currently lives in London.

Contents

Background

Chipo Chung was born as a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is half-Zimbabwean and half-Chinese. She spent her first two years in refugee camps in Mozambique with thousands of young people who were escaping the war in then-Rhodesia.

Chipo was raised in Harare and developed her acting with the mixed-race theatre company Over the Edge. At eighteen, she moved to the United States where her mother, Fay Chung was working for the United Nations. She studied at Yale University and graduated cum laude with a double major in Theatre Studies and Fine Art.

Career

Acting

Chipo trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London and graduated in 2003. Her repertoire includes political theatre: Talking to Terrorists (Royal Court Theatre), The Overwhelming (Royal National Theatre) and Fallujah (in which she played Condoleezza Rice), as well as classical plays such as Phedre, in which she performed with Helen Mirren (Royal National Theatre) and Epidavros.

She is known in science fiction circles for her work in Doctor Who, in one episode playing the Master's assistant Chantho, and in another, a character called the Fortune Teller. She also worked with Danny Boyle on his science fiction epic Sunshine, playing Icarus (voice). Other appearances include the TV drama, The Last Enemy and film appearances in In the Loop and Proof.

She is currently working on the 2011 medieval romance drama series, Camelot, with Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green and Jamie Campbell Bower. The show is produced by Starz, and shot in Ireland by the team that created The Tudors.

Activism

Chipo founded the UK-based charity 'Sponsored Arts For Education' (SAFE) which develops theatre for social change in Kenya, focusing on HIV education and abolishing clitoridectomy, and currently sits on its Board of Trustees. She works closely with the charity Peace Direct in support of 'Envision Zimbabwe', a women's trust that works towards consensus-building and peace in Zimbabwe. She also sits on the RADA Council and British Equity's International Committee for Artists' Freedom (ICAF).

Filmography

References

  1. ^ "About Us". SponsoredArts.org. Sponsored Arts For Education. 2010. http://www.sponsoredarts.org/AboutUs/tabid/58/Default.aspx. 

External links


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