Thuso Mbedu Talks Beauty, Struggle And Impact Of Her ‘Underground Railroad’ Journey – Deadline

If you have seen Barry Jenkins’s The Underground Railroad on Amazon Prime Video, you probably already had your breath taken away by its beauty and riveted by the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for fiction of the same name. However, there is one major takeaway from the series: the incredible performance from the series star Thuso Mbedu.

In the limited series, Mbedu plays Cora, who goes on a journey after she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.

Mbedu is joined by Chase W. Dillon in the series and if you don’t know here name now, you better get used to seeing it. The actress is an absolute force in the ten episodes of the series. That said, she is already making major moves as she is set to star in The Woman King alongside Viola Davis.

She stopped by Deadline’s New Hollywood Podcast to talk about playing the demanding role of Cora and being from South Africa and telling an American narrative. Listen to the episode below.