Hey folks Sam Jones here.

Welcome to another edition of Off-camera, the show where I get to talk to iconic,

creative, curious artists and find out how they got that way.

And in this episode, I talked to actress and playwright Denai Gurida.

The talented and worldly Denai Gurida has been bridging the gap between disparate worlds

ever since her family moved from Grinnell, Iowa all the way to Africa when she was five years old.

In school, the Zimbabwean American, or Zamerican, as she calls herself, was the African

kid with the twangy American accent, who got along with everybody regardless of race and class. That ability to cross both artistic

and geographic borders has defined an eye's career. On the blockbuster side, she

inhabits the character of Ocouye in the Marvel film Black Panther and the character of

Michone, the butt kicking zombie killer in AMC's hit series The Walking Dead.

And on the literary side, she's a playwright with Broadway success who mingles

with the high-brow theater crowd. But don't get caught up in Western delineations between

actor and writer, because at her core,

Deny is a storyteller, a woman who uses her unique perspective

and artistic talent to reveal the shared humanity

between seemingly different worlds of Africa and America.

Deny points out that talent must be nurtured and distractions must be set aside

because the whole goal of storytelling is to become a worthy enough vessel for the story to come

through you.

Deny joins us to discuss the nuanced world of Ryan Kugler's Black Panther, auditioning

for the Walking Dead, overcoming grad school breakdowns, and discovering

...