Stenberg has been recognized for her outspoken views, particularly towards her activism for
LGBT youth, which has received significant media coverage. She made her musical debut as part of the
folk rock duo Honeywater, formed in 2015, and performed the song "
Let My Baby Stay" for Everything, Everything.
Early life
Amandla Stenberg, born in
Los Angeles, California, is the child of Karen Brailsford, an African-American spiritual counselor and writer, and Tom Stenberg, who is Danish.[4][5][6][7] She has
Greenlandic Inuit ancestry from her paternal grandmother.[8] Stenberg has two older half-sisters on her father's side.[9][10]
Her first name means "
power" or "strength" in the
South African languages of
IsiXhosa and
Zulu.[11] At age four, Stenberg started doing catalog modeling shoots for
Disney.[1] She has appeared in commercials for clients such as
Boeing and
Kmart.[12][13]
Career
2011–2016: Early roles and breakthrough
In 2011, she appeared in her first feature film, Colombiana, as a younger version of
Zoe Saldana's character.[14] Her breakthrough came at the age of 14, when she was cast as Rue in the 2012 film The Hunger Games.[15] The film was a critical and financial success,[16][17] and Stenberg's performance was praised. She received a number of awards and nominations, including a
Black Reel Award nomination.[18] In 2013, she was cast in the short film Mercy playing the daughter of
Robin Thicke and
Paula Patton; Thicke directed the film.[19][20] Stenberg had a
recurring role on season one of Sleepy Hollow from 2013 to 2014.[21]
In 2013, Stenberg began performing on the violin and singing harmonies at Los Angeles venues with singer-songwriter Zander Hawley. In 2014, Stenberg voiced Bia in the animated film Rio 2, which was a commercial success.[22][23] In 2015, Stenberg released her first EP in August 2015 as the folk-rock duo Honeywater. In 2015, she released the video "Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows".[24] She played series regular Halle Foster on the short-lived series Mr. Robinson, which ran in 2015.[25] Stenberg co-wrote the comic book Niobe: She is Life with Sebastian Jones, which was illustrated by
Ashley A. Woods, and published in November 2015.[26][27] It is the first nationally distributed comic that has a black woman as its protagonist, author, and another as the artist.[28]
In 2016, Stenberg appeared in Beyoncé: Lemonade by
Beyoncé,[29] and won the
BET YoungStars Award.[30] In the same year, she signed with
The Society, a modelling agency.[31] Also in 2016, Stenberg had auditioned for the role of
Shuri in the
superhero filmBlack Panther, however, she walked away because she felt that she was not right for the role. She told
Variety magazine in 2018: "It was so exhilarating to see it fulfilled by people who should have been a part of it and who deserved it and who were right for it. I just wasn't."[32][33] The role was instead given to actress
Letitia Wright.
2017–present: Critical acclaim
In 2017, Stenberg and Sebastian Jones released Niobe: She is Death, the second part of the trilogy.[34] In the same year, she starred in the romantic drama Everything, Everything, directed by
Stella Meghie,[35][36] and co-starring
Nick Robinson. Her single, "Let My Baby Stay", was featured in the film's soundtrack.[37] She received praise for her performance, and earned a
Teen Choice Award nomination.[38]
In 2018, she played the lead role of Starr Carter in the contemporary drama The Hate U Give, based on the novel
of the same name, which is about the
Black Lives Matter movement. The film was received positively,[39] and Stenberg received critical acclaim for her performance, with the magazine Rolling Stone writing "It is impossible to over-praise Stenberg's incandescent performance, a gathering storm that grows in ferocity and feeling with each scene."[39] The film's director,
George Tillman Jr., wrote that "She has this ability to make you feel like you're seeing the real deal, which comes from a level of dedication to the material that's rare at any age."[40] She earned several awards and nominations for the role, which include winning an
NAACP Image Award and being nominated for a
Critics' Choice Award.[41][42] In late 2018, Stenberg starred in
Amma Asante's World War II drama Where Hands Touch.[43][44]
In 2019, Stenberg portrayed
Elizabeth Eckford, a 15-year-old girl who in 1957 was among a group of
nine black students who were initially prevented from entering a
racially segregated high school in Little Rock, during a segment on the television show Drunk History (2019).[45] In May 2019, she joined the cast of the
Netflix miniseries The Eddy,[46] which was released on May 8, 2020. That same month, she signed on to star in the remake of the 1996 thriller film Fear.[47] In August 2020, she was cast as Alana Beck in
Stephen Chbosky's film adaptation of the broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. She also collaborated with the show's composers,
Pasek and Paul, on "The Anonymous Ones", a new song written specifically for her character, whose role was expanded upon from the stage version.[48] In 2021, Stenberg was cast in the main role for the upcoming Star Wars series The Acolyte.[49][50] In May 2023, she was announced as part of the voice cast of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as
Margo Kess / Spider-Byte.[51]
From early 2018 to late 2018, Stenberg dated singer Mikaela Mullaney Straus, better known by her stage name
King Princess.[69] In a July 2017 interview, Stenberg said she had stopped using a smartphone, believing that such devices and social media can have a negative effect on mental health.[70] In 2020, she spent three months living in
Copenhagen in order to
retain her Danish citizenship.[71]
Dazed magazine named Stenberg "one of the most incendiary voices of her generation" when it featured her on its Autumn 2015 cover.[72] She was included in Time's list of Most Influential Teens in 2015 and again in 2016.[2][3] In 2016, she was included in the SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders by
Oprah Winfrey.[73]