Sheila Atim

Sheila Atim (born c. 1991) is a Ugandan-British actress, singer, composer, and playwright.

Sheila Atim was born c. 1991 in Uganda and moved to the United Kingdom with her mother at the age of five months.

She grew up in Rainham, London, and attended the Coopers' Company and Coborn School.

She did some occasional modelling as a teenager after being recruited when she shaved the side of her head for a school prom.

She appeared in a 2009 London Fashion Week event, All Walks beyond the Catwalk, organized by the British Fashion Council to showcase clothes for "real women".

She later said that "modelling was never a big earner for me. I was unusual looking, so I couldn't go for commercial castings."

Atim graduated with a degree in biomedical science from King's College London and trained as an actor at the Weekend Arts Centre in Belsize Park, London.

She made her professional acting debut in 2013 at Shakespeare's Globe in The Lightning Child, a musical written by her acting teacher Ché Walker.

She became involved in a workshop for a new play, The Lightning Child, which led to her being cast by her acting teacher Ché Walker for her professional acting debut at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013.

The Lightning Child, written by Walker and Arthur Darvill, ran for several weeks from mid-September 2013 and was the first musical staged at Shakespeare's Globe.

It received mixed reviews, with the Financial Times describing it as "a bold experiment, but sadly not a successful one" and The Guardian review calling it "oddly conventional and pointlessly excessive".

The Independent said that despite the production being overlong and having problems with the structure, it was "hard not to like" the show.

Atim played Keira, the physical embodiment of obsessive–compulsive disorder, in Ghost Town at the York Theatre Royal in early 2014.

What's On Stage praised her "mesmeric physical presence" and The Yorkshire Times review said that Atim "dominated the stage".

Following this, Atim appeared with Ako Mitchell in Walker's two-hander Klook's Last Stand, being praised by The Guardian for an energetic performance and "tremendous stage presence" by The Daily Telegraph.

In the autumn of 2014 she appeared in Rachel at the Finborough Theatre and followed this by joining the touring production of Kae Tempest's Hopelessly Devoted.

In addition to this, Atim played three roles in Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) productions: the Attendant in The Jew of Malta, Julia in Love's Sacrifice, and Assistant to Lady Politic Would-Be in Volpone.

Walker's The Etienne Sisters, which included songs composed by Atim, opened two days before the end of her run in Volpone.

Following critically acclaimed stage roles in the Donmar Warehouse's all-female Shakespeare Trilogy in 2016 among others, Atim won the 2018 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role as Marianne Laine in an original production of Girl from the North Country.

Atim's first major stage role was the non-speaking part of The Woman in Les Blancs at the National Theatre in 2016.

The Stage said of her performance that "at the centre of the narrative is its most potent character: a gaunt, stooped and silent woman."

The New York Times described a "spine-tingling production" and suggested that Atim's character may be an emblem of Africa.

The Times later referred to her performance as "mesmerising".

Atim received acclaim for her 2016 performances in the Donmar Warehouse's all-female Shakespeare Trilogy set in a women's prison, when she played Ferdinand in The Tempest, Gadshill and Lady Percy in Henry IV, and Lucius in Julius Caesar.

The Guardian said Atim was "a glorious, giddy Ferdinand and a moving Lady Percy – [and] frequently seems to be physically stabbing the text as much as speaking it" and The Independent wrote "Sheila Atim (Ferdinand) and Leah Harvey (Miranda) are adorably funny and charming as they capture the giddy gaucheries of first love."

She played Marianne Laine in the original run of the musical Girl from the North Country at The Old Vic in London from 26 July to 7 October 2017.

Atim won a 2018 Clarence Derwent Award, presented to best supporting actors in London productions, for her roles in The Tempest and Les Blancs.

Her leading role in Babette received a more mixed assessment, with The Times saying she was "the best thing about [the] production" while The Daily Telegraph review said "It's a pity ... that Babette, whose story this is, should remain, in Atim's somewhat remote performance, so distant a figure."

Following the success of The Old Vic production, it transferred into London's West End at the Noël Coward Theatre from 29 December for a limited 12-week run until 24 March 2018.

The play is set during the Great Depression and Atim's character Marianne Laine is a black woman, who was adopted by a white couple that run a struggling guesthouse.

The character is pregnant and appears to have been forsaken by the father of her unborn child.

The music for the show consists of songs by Bob Dylan and amongst the numbers that Atim performs are his "Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)" and "Idiot Wind".

The Guardian described Atim as "outstanding" in the role, with delivery of "Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)" being "direct, unaffected and perfectly poised" and her performance of "Idiot Wind" a "beautiful reading".

The Times stated that "Atim, in a strong cast, is standout," in an article that was headlined "She sings Dylan better than Bob."

For her Girl from the North Country role, she received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Play at the 18th WhatsOnStage awards and won the 2018 Laurence Olivier award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.

She has composed songs for several productions and premiered her play Anguis at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

She has also been cast in several television series, including the cancelled Game of Thrones successor series Bloodmoon, the BBC's The Pale Horse and Amazon's The Underground Railroad, directed by Barry Jenkins.

In 2021, she starred in Netflix's successful sports drama Bruised, directed and produced by Halle Berry.

In 2022, she won another Laurence Olivier Award, this time for Best Lead Actress, for her performance in the play Constellations.

In 2020, she told the King's College alumni magazine that "I look back and feel a strong connection between my scientific and artistic sides. Science often comes up in my work – even the way I approach things in the rehearsal room is affected by having taken BioMed. Sometimes it’s little private parallels and analogies I make for myself."