Emmy and BAFTA award-winning actress, playwright, screenwriter, director, showrunner, poet, and author Michaela Coel is an international phenomenon.

Coel’s ground-breaking dark comedy-drama, I May Destroy You, premiered on HBO and BBC to critical acclaim. She became the first Black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology series, and the hit series earned 9 Emmy nominations. The series also garnered BAFTA’s for Best Limited Series, Director, Writer, and Actress, as well as a Peabody award, Independent Spirit Awards, and a GLAAD Award, amongst many others, with multiple nominations globally.

Despite the awards and accolades, Coel doesn’t fit. Her best-selling book, Misfits: A Personal Manifesto, is a passionate declaration against fitting in. The book builds on her celebrated speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, where she was the first Black woman to give a MacTaggart lecture. Misfits immerses readers in her vision through powerful allegory and deeply personal anecdotes―from her coming of age in London public housing to her discovery of theater and her love for storytelling. And she tells of her reckoning with trauma and metamorphosis into a champion for herself, inclusivity, and radical honesty.

Prior to I May Destroy You, Coel created, wrote, directed, and starred in her first series Chewing Gum, based on her award-winning play, which ran for two seasons on E4 and Netflix, for which she won BAFTA’s for Best Female Comedy Performance and Breakthrough Talent. She was also featured in Time Magazines’ 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

Coel can be seen in the anticipated sequel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She is also writing a new BBC series.

In 2018, Coel played the lead role in Been So Long, a movie-musical written by Che Walker and directed by Tinge Krishnan. The film was released on Netflix, and she was nominated for ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ at the British Independent Film. That year she also starred in the BBC Two/Netflix drama Black Earth Rising, receiving rave reviews for her performance as a woman rescued from the Rwandan genocide (as a child) and brought to Britain. Written and directed by Hugo Blick, the show explored issues of justice, guilt and self-determination across Europe, the UK, Africa, and the USA.

In 2017, Coel was picked as one of the Screen International ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ and made the Forbes Magazine ‘30 under 30’ list celebrating the brightest young entrepreneurs, breakout talents, and change agents across the globe. She was also selected as one of the European Shooting Stars at the Berlinale Film Festival.

2017 saw Coel featured in series four of Charlie Brooker’s award-winning dystopian drama series Black Mirror for Netflix. She also made a surprise cameo appearance in the 2017 film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Other TV credits include E4 comedy-drama The Aliens; BBC espionage drama London; and the award-winning, raw and gripping C4 drama Top Boy.

Coel’s theatre credits include acting roles in Home directed by Nadia Fall, Medea, and Blurred Lines, directed by Carrie Cracknell, all at the National Theatre, and Three Birds at the Bush Theatre and Manchester Royal Exchange, directed by Sarah Frankcom.