Thandiwe Newton is an actress, and model of British descent. Currently, Newton is well-known for playing a variety of memorable leading parts in recent blockbusters. She has acted in both the “Star Wars” and “Mission: Impossible” film series. Thandie’s most well-known performance outside of her cinematic work was arguably in the critically acclaimed HBO TV series “Westworld,” where she played an artificial prostitute.
She has won numerous awards over her career, including a Primetime Emmy, two Critics’ Choice Awards, a Golden Globe, a Saturn Award, and many more. Thandie is regarded as one of the world’s best-dressed ladies outside of her acting career and was listed in numerous top-style rankings in 2018. Additionally, Newton is regarded as one of the most powerful women in the UK. Thandie, a devoted vegan, was recognized by PETA as the “Sexiest Vegan of 2014” in 2014.
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Early Life
Thandiwe Newton was born in Westminster, London, England, to Nick Newton, an English laboratory technician, and artist, and Nyasha, a member of a Shona chiefly family from Zimbabwe. Her younger brother was born in Zambia, where her family had previously resided and eventually returned. Although some publications have wrongly said that she was born in Zambia, she has clarified in interviews that she was actually born in London. The name Thandiwe Newton is of Nguni origin and means “beloved.”
Her family relocated to Penzance, Cornwall, in England when she was three years old so that her father could assist in managing his family’s antiquities business. She was a student at St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School. When speaking at a TED conference, Thandiwe Newton said, “I was conscious that I didn’t fit from around the age of five. I was the only black, atheist student at the nun-run, all-white Catholic school. I was unusual.” She started saying “Thandie” instead of “Thandiwe,” dropping the letter w.
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Thandiwe Newton grew up in Penzance and London. At the Tring Park School for Performing Arts, she took dance classes. Newton studied at Downing College in Cambridge from 1992 to 1995, earning a degree in social anthropology there.
Career
Thandiwe Newton made her cinematic debut in the coming-of-age comedy-drama Flirting (1991), and in the Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise movie Interview with the Vampire, she played the slave “Yvette” (1994). As Sally Hemings, Newton played a part in the Merchant-Ivory production of Jefferson in Paris. Then, she starred as the titular character, the spirit of a little slave girl whose mother kills her in order to keep her from being sold into slavery, in Jonathan Demme’s 1998 drama Beloved, which was based on Toni Morrison’s novel.
Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey were also featured in the movie. In Mission: Impossible 2, Newton played Nyah Nordoff-Hall opposite Cruise once more. It Was an Accident, a low-budget movie created by her husband, screenwriter Ol Parker, was the setting for her subsequent performance.
Thandiwe Newton portrayed Makemba “Kem” Likasu, John Carter’s love interest, on the American television show ER from 2003 to 2005. In 2009, she played the part again for the series’ climax. She also had appearances in Crash and The Chronicles of Riddick in 2004. For her work in Crash, she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2006. In The Pursuit of Happyness, she portrayed Linda Gardner, Chris Gardner’s wife. Also in 2006, Newton gave a radio performance of Cinderella in pantomime.
In the romantic comedy Norbit from 2007, Thandiwe Newton appeared alongside Eddie Murphy as his love interest. In the 2008 comedy Run Fatboy Run, she plays his ex-girlfriend opposite Simon Pegg. In Oliver Stone’s biography of President George W. Bush, W., she next played Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Advisor and then-Secretary of State. The movie was made available in October 2008.
On July 7, 2007, Thandiwe Newton served as an introducer at Wembley Stadium for the Live Earth UK tour. She was supposed to present former US Vice President Al Gore to the concert, but he got stuck in traffic, so Newton tried to amuse the crowd by cracking jokes. Next, Thandiwe Newton played fictitious US First Daughter Laura Wilson in Roland Emmerich’s disaster movie 2012, which was released on November 13, 2009.
Thandiwe Newton gave a TED talk titled “Embracing otherness, embracing myself” in July 2011. As a child growing up in two different cultures and as an actress portraying many various personalities, she talked of discovering her “otherness.” She co-starred with Tyler Perry in the 2012 romantic drama movie Good Deeds.
She also appeared in Tyler Perry’s 2010 film For Colored Females, which was based on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 choreopoem for colored girls who have contemplated suicide / when the rainbow is enough. Newton starred in Rogue, DirecTV’s Audience Network’s first drama original series, in 2013. In the third season, she left Rogue. She appeared in the American miniseries The Slap in 2015.
In the Solo: A Star Wars Story movie, which debuted in May 2018, Thandiwe Newton played Val.
Thandiwe Newton declared in a 2021 interview that she would be adding the w to the name she uses professionally. Corrections would be made to her prior performance credentials, and she would be credited as “Thandiwe” rather than “Thandie”.
Thandiwe Newton Husband
Ol Parker, a well-known screenwriter, was born in the United Kingdom on June 2, 1969. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel were written by the critically renowned screenwriter and filmmaker. He also wrote the scripts for the hit movies Imagine Me & You in 2005 and Now is Good in 2012. Gemini is Ol Parker’s zodiac sign, according to astrologers.
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He has directed films like Now Is Good and Imagine Me & You (2012). He also wrote and directed the musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. He penned the screenplays for Imagine Me & You (2005), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
In 1998, Thandiwe Newton wed the English author, filmmaker, and producer Ol Parker. Two daughters, including Nico, and a son born in 2014 make up their family of three. All three were delivered at home.
Personal Life
She was recognized as the UK’s “Sexiest Vegan of 2014” by PETA and is a vegan.
We Wish Hopes and Dreams of Cornwall’s Children, a collection of children’s literature produced in support of the NSPCC, with a foreword written by Newton in 2006. She discussed her early memories of her upbringing in Cornwall and how the region’s rich cultural past made it simple for her to “enrich every situation with layers of magic and meaning” in her writing.
In response to Greenpeace’s sticker that reads “This gas-guzzling 4×4 is creating climate change,” Newton traded in her nearly new BMW X5 and bought a Toyota Prius. Thandiwe Newton visited the impoverished nation of Mali in 2008 and called it a “humbling experience.” She went to the village of Nampasso in the nation’s Ségou Region. Newton was the leader of the One Billion Rising flash mob in 2013 in London, which called for the abolition of violence, justice, and gender equality.
The actress was referred to as “the queen of practical jokes” by David Schwimmer, the director of Run Fatboy Run. Newton has said that he likes Buddhism.
In 2016, Newton said that a director had frequently shown his friends a tape of her doing a sexually explicit audition that she had recorded as an adolescent. Newton acknowledged this incident as a factor in her decision to accept the Westworld job, which required a significant amount of nudity. In addition to reflecting on sexual assault survivors’ experiences, this role raised ethical concerns about what it means to be compassionate.
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After being “ostracized” after speaking out against alleged sexual assault by a director, Newton expressed disappointment in 2018 that she had not received an invitation to join the Times Up movement against sexual harassment.
Fashion website Net-a-Porter named Newton one of the year’s best-dressed ladies. Later that year, it was revealed that Thandiwe Newton had made the 2019 Powerlist, which ranked the 100 most significant Black Britons.
Thandiwe Newton Net Worth
Thandiwe Newton has a $14 million dollar net worth. Thandiwe, a British actress, and model earn a living in several fields. Various estimates indicate that as of 2022, her yearly earnings will range between $2 and $3 million. Her main sources of revenue include films, television shows, series, and brand partnerships. After Westworld’s first season, Thandie’s wage was raised to $250,000 per episode. By the third season, Newton was still receiving $250,000 per episode.
