Shaniqua Okwok is a British actress. She is best known for her roles as Maia in

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series '' The Flatshare'' (2022) and Dominique in the

Sky Max Sky Max is a British pay television channel and on-demand service which launched on 1 September 2021. It is owned and operated by Sky Group, a subsidiary of Comcast. The service broadcasts a variety of drama, comedy-drama, and unscripted serie ...

series '' Wolfe'' (2021). Okwok has also made appearances as Solly Babatunde in ''

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'' (2021), Patty in '' Small Axe'', Lotta Nagel in ''

Van der Valk ''Van der Valk'' is a British television crime drama series produced for the ITV network by Thames Television. It ran from 13 September 1972 to 19 February 1992, with the first three series produced between 1972 and 1977, and two more being c ...

'', and Leah in ''

War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in '' Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and '' Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel wa ...

''.

Early life

Okwok was born in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

to a Ugandan mother and a Jamaican father. She attended The BRIT School and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where she graduated in 2018. After receiving the Laurence Olivier Bursary Award from the Official London Theatre in 2017, she went on to make her television debut on BBC One in 2018 as Helen Nedarson in Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. Okwok originally wanted to be a stock broker and planned to study economics at

LSE LSE may refer to: Education * London School of Economics, a public research university within the University of London * Lahore School of Economics, a private university in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan * Lincoln Southeast High School, a public gove ...

. However, she claims she "fell into acting and it kept falling into place".

Personal life

Okwok got involved in social justice work early on in her acting career. Following her graduation from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and during the summer of 2020, Okwok led a student campaign of hundreds to call out the "words and actions of open and overt racism" that occurred during her tenure at the institute, including an incident of being called a "slave" during a class. Okwok remains an active advocate for the protection of minority actors to this day.

Filmography

Film

Television

Podcasts

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Okwok, Shaniqua 21st-century English actresses Actresses from Surrey Alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama Black British actresses English people of Jamaican descent English people of Ugandan descent Actors educated at the BRIT School Actors from the London Borough of Croydon Actresses from London Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Croydon