Amandla Stenberg’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Amandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998) is an American actress and singer, who was included in Time‘s list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016. In 2016, she was included in Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.

Stenberg is best known for her work in feature films, which include The Hunger Games (2012) in which she portrayed Rue, Everything, Everything (2017) in which she portrayed Madeline Whittier, and The Hate U Give (2018) in which she portrayed Starr Carter.

Early life

Amandla Stenberg was born in Los Angeles, California, the child of Karen Brailsford, an African-American spiritual counselor and writer, and Tom Stenberg, who is Danish. Her paternal grandmother had Greenlandic Inuit ancestry.

Stenberg has two older half-sisters on her father’s side. Her first name means “power” or “strength” in the South African languages of IsiXhosa and Zulu.

Career

At the age of four, Stenberg started doing catalog modeling shoots for Disney. She has appeared in commercials for clients such as Boeing. In 2011, she appeared in her first feature film, Colombiana, as a younger version of Zoe Saldana’s character. Her career breakthrough came when she was cast as Rue in the 2012 film The Hunger Games. She voiced Bia in the 2014 animated film Rio 2. Stenberg had a recurring role on season one of Sleepy Hollow. In 2015, she played series regular Halle Foster on Mr. Robinson.

In 2013, Stenberg began performing on the violin and singing harmonies at Los Angeles venues with singer-songwriter Zander Hawley. They released their first EP in August 2015 as the folk-rock duo Honeywater. Dazed magazine named Stenberg “one of the most incendiary voices of her generation” when it featured her on its Autumn 2015 cover. Stenberg has spoken publicly on social media about cultural appropriation. Her video “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” admonished Kylie Jenner for adopting that traditionally African-American hairstyle.

Stenberg co-wrote the comic book Niobe: She is Life with Sebastian Jones. The book is an offshoot of Jones’ graphic novel The Untamed. It is set in a fantasy world and follows the journey of a half elf half human princess. According to Jones, it’s the first nationally distributed comic that has a black woman as its protagonist while also having a black woman as the author and another as the artist. Jones wanted Stenberg’s help in creating the comic because it revolved around a young female character. The first issue, illustrated by Ashley A. Woods, was published in November 2015. In May 2017 the pair released Niobe: She is Death, the second part of the trilogy. In April 2016, Stenberg gave a speech at WE Day California, a WE Charity event.

In 2017, she starred in the romantic drama Everything, Everything, directed by Stella Meghie, and co-starring Nick Robinson. She played the lead in the contemporary drama The Hate U Give (2018), and in Amma Asante’s World War II drama Where Hands Touch (2018).

In May 2019, she joined the cast of Netflix’s The Eddy.

Personal life

Stenberg identifies as an intersectional feminist. She is outspoken about her political views in interviews and on social media, and was named “Feminist of the Year” in 2015 by the Ms. Foundation for Women. In 2016, Stenberg announced via Instagram that she would be attending studying filmmaking at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Stenberg identifies as non-binary, and uses both ‘they’ and ‘she’ pronouns. She has previously said she was bisexual and pansexual. In June 2018, in an interview with Wonderland magazine, she came out as gay. From early 2018 to late 2018, Stenberg dated singer Mikaela Mullaney Straus, better known by her stage name King Princess.

In a July 2017 interview Stenberg stated that she had stopped using a smartphone due to its effects on mental health, and took a long break from it.