Zainab Jah
Biography
Zainab Jah was raised in Sierra Leone and returned to London at the age of ten. After graduating from London Contemporary Dance, she toured as a modern dancer, eventually trading dance for acting. She appeared in numerous plays, winning rave reviews for shows both on and off-Broadway including the Tony-nominated Eclipsed, and won Best Actress from the Philadelphia Critic’s Circle for Hamlet at the Wilma Theatre. Her work in film & TV includes anti-corruption minister Aminata Sissoko in the second season of Deep State, Aby Bah in Homeland, and Harriet Tubman in Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird. Other work includes appearances on Blindspot, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the EPIX series Deep State, and the Sundance hit Farewell Amor. Most recently, she was featured in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She can currently be seen in the John Wick spin-off mini-series The Continental.
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Full filmography
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) as Homeless Person
- The Blacklist (2013) as Aïssa Joachim
- Homeland (2011) as Aby Bah
- Elementary (2012) as Vicki
- Blindspot (2015) as President Botros
- Only Murders in the Building (2021) as Ndidi Idoko
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) as Mining Tribe Elder
- East New York (2022) as Adama Gueye
- The Continental: From the World of John Wick (2023) as Mazie
- The Good Lord Bird (2020) as Harriet Tubman
- False Positive (2021) as Grace Singleton
- Watching Mr. Pearson (2026) as The Advisor
- Dinner Rush (2000) as Adrian
- Emily & Tim (2015) as Helayne Specter (segment 'Healing')
- Farewell Amor (2020) as Esther
- All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023) as Older Mack
- Drift (2024) as Etweda Kamara
- The Black Disquisition (2021) as Sedalia / Mom
- Buried Deep (2016) as Zainab
- Launch at Paradise (2022) as Elsa
- Sherman (2022) as Sherman