Danai Gurira adds ‘showrunner’ to her impressive resume

Danai Gurira is adding another impressive title to her already impressive resume as she serves as showrunner for a brand new show on HBO.

There’s nothing that The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira can’t do. The multi-talented Tony-nominated actress will be leaving her role as Michonne behind in season 10, but she’s moving on to incredible new projects. Gurira is taking on the role of showrunner for an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s bestselling novel Americanah for HBO Max.

Gurira has demonstrated her incredible range as an actress with roles in independent projects as well as massive blockbuster movies like Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame and on The Walking Dead. She’s an incredible writer and playwright, as seen with her Tony-nominated play Eclipsed.

Gurira will team with her Black Panther co-star, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, and together they will serve as producers on the project. Americanah will be another limited series coming to the HBO Max arm of Warner Bros’ new streaming service. Nyong’o will star and Gurira will serve as the showrunner.

The 10-episode series will be the first time Nyong’o has starred in an American television show; in addition to the Marvel films, Nyong’o has appeared in Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed Us and later in 2019 she will return to a galaxy far, far away as Maz Kanata in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

Americanah is the story of a woman who leaves her home in Nigeria to travel to the United States.  Gurira is eager to bring this powerful story to life:

"Through Americanah, Chimamanda brought the African female voice into mainstream consciousness in an unprecedented way. It is intellectually incisive, indicting, yet full of humor, and riddled with humanity. She makes unheard voices familiar, universal and yet palpably specific. I am honored to bring her incredible novel to life on the screen. I’m thrilled to collaborate once again with Lupita, who brings her astounding ability as a performer and producer shepherding this project, along with HBO Max’s unbridled enthusiasm to bring this groundbreaking narrative to the TV audience."

Though The Walking Dead fans will be sad to see Gurira depart the show, it’s an incredibly exciting time for her as she embraces this new role as showrunner and prepares to film the sequel to Black Panther in addition to her philanthropic endeavors and all of her other projects.

There’s no question that Gurira is the busiest member of the TWD Family, and we’re hoping that even with all of these other projects she makes an appearance in the Rick Grimes movies to bring that epic story to a close. She has been such an integral part of The Walking Dead story that it will be nice to see Michonne and Rick have a happy ending.