Masali Baduza (born 1996) is a South African actress. She is best known for her role as Sephy Hadley in the BBC drama '' Noughts + Crosses''. She was named a rising star and one to watch by the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

Early life

The youngest of six children, Baduza is from

East London, Eastern Cape East London (; ) is a city on the southeastern coast of South Africa, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa, Province. The city lies on the Indian Ocean coast, largely between the Buffalo River ( ...

. She is bilingual in Xhosa and English. She trained at the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

campus of the

New York Film Academy New York Film Academy – School of Film and Acting (NYFA) is a Private college, private For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit film school and Drama school, acting school based in New York City, Los Angeles metropolitan ar ...

, graduating with an

Associate degree An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree ...

in 2016.

Career

Baduza began her career mostly in theatre and appeared in the South African crime thriller '' Trackers'', which was

M-Net M-Net (an abbreviation of Electronic Media Network) is a South African pay television channel established by Naspers in 1986. The channel broadcasts both local and international programming, including general entertainment, children's series, ...

's top performing show for 2019. Her films include '' Slumber Party Massacre'' (2021) and ''

The Woman King ''The Woman King'' is a 2022 American historical action-adventure film about the Agojie, the all-female warrior regiment that protected the West African Kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries. Set in the 1820s, the film stars Vi ...

'' (2022). In 2024, she had a guest role on

Bridgerton ''Bridgerton'' is an American alternative history regency romance television series created by Chris Van Dusen for Netflix. Based on the book series Bridgerton (novel series), of the same name by Julia Quinn, it is Shondaland's first scripted ...

Season 3 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

as Michaela Stirling, a genderflipped version of the book character Michael Stirling.

Filmography

References

External links

* Living people 1996 births 21st-century South African actresses New York Film Academy alumni People from East London, South Africa Actors from the Eastern Cape South African stage actresses South African television actresses Xhosa people Xhosa women {{SouthAfrica-actor-stub