Nathalie Emmanuel

She found out she got the Game of Thrones role while working a shift at a clothes shop, which is either the most British origin story imaginable or the most cinematic. Before that she'd spent four years on Hollyoaks as Sasha Valentine, reliable work but not the kind anyone puts on a poster. Missandei made her a series regular by 2015. That same year, Furious 7 dropped her into the Fast franchise as hacker Ramsey, and the character stuck through four films, even if the franchise never quite knew what to do with her.

Spending eight years attached to two of the biggest franchises in the world still didn't make her a movie star. The Fast films kept Ramsey in the background even as the series kept printing money. John Woo's The Killer (2024) gave her the lead she'd been waiting for: Zee, a hit woman in Paris, trending on Peacock by late 2025. Francis Ford Coppola cast her as co-lead in the self-funded Megalopolis (2024), which may be the most expensive film nobody agreed on.

Her mother is Dominican and her father is of Saint Lucian and English descent, a background Westeros never quite made room for. She started acting classes at 3 and played Young Nala in the West End Lion King at 10. Critics called Missandei's execution in Game of Thrones an example of 'fridging,' arguing the show killed a Black woman to fuel a white woman's revenge arc. Emmanuel has said her piece diplomatically, which is more restraint than the scene deserved.