--- name: "Noma Dumezweni" canonical: "https://film.one/person/noma-dumezweni" fi1m_id: "noma-dumezweni" imdb_id: "nm1282920" tmdb_id: 517103 wikidata_id: "Q7048366" roles: ["Actor"] born: "28 July 1969" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_fi1m_score: 71 average_as: "actor" average_over: 4 updated: "2026-10-07T19:55:59.716641+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Noma Dumezweni ## Identity Noma Dumezweni - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/noma-dumezweni - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** noma-dumezweni - **IMDb ID:** nm1282920 - **TMDB ID:** 517103 - **Wikidata ID:** Q7048366 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noma_Dumezweni, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7048366, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1282920/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/517103 Actor. Born 28 July 1969 in Swaziland, South Africa. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 28 July 1969, Swaziland, South Africa - **Active:** 2018–present - **Average Fi1m score:** 71, as actor, over 4 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 67 (1), 2020s 73 (3) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 71 to 75 across 4 titles - **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 2 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 2, Family 2, Fantasy 2, Adventure 1, Comedy 1, Romance 1 - **Screen time:** 4 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $918m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noma_Dumezweni, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7048366, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1282920/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/517103 ## Coming up - *Prima Facie* (2026-11-13) ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Best Interests*](https://film.one/tv/best-interests.md) (76) - **Disney+:** [*The Little Mermaid*](https://film.one/film/the-little-mermaid.md) (58) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Noma Dumezweni > Noma Dumezweni is usually the one who has already decided: the doctor, the lawyer, the queen. The stage gave her a stillness that survives any amount of digital water; the screen has yet to give her a part her own size. Watch the first episode of *Best Interests* (2023) and notice who is doing the talking. Marnie's doctors have concluded that keeping her alive is no longer the kind thing, and Samantha, played by Noma Dumezweni, is the one who says so, in a small room with a box of tissues on the table. She does not raise her voice and she does not lower it either. Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen get the series, and deserve it, but it is Dumezweni's doctor who sets the whole thing moving, and she has decided before we meet her. That is her screen work in one scene. She is cast as doctors, lawyers, judges and queens, the person with the authority and the bad news, and she plays them with a precision that comes from the stage. She had no drama school; she came up through youth theatre workshops, fringe and pub theatre, then the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the voice and the stillness were built there. Her early television was guest spots, nurses and receptionists, the woman behind a desk. By her own account the parts have changed: "I feel as if I've proved my mettle, they're more highfalutin now." The turn came on stage. She stepped into the lead in *Linda* at the Royal Court in 2015 at short notice, and the next year originated the adult Hermione in *Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* for John Tiffany, which brought her the kind of attention few stage actors get. The screen followed, and it followed with status: Miss Penny Farthing in *Mary Poppins Returns* (2018) for Rob Marshall, the defence attorney Haley Fitzgerald in *The Undoing* (2020), *The Watcher* (2022), and Marshall again for *The Little Mermaid* (2023), where she plays a queen written for the film. We found some dry warmth in her there, a mother who wants her son kept off the water, in a film we thought afraid to change anything else. What works is the economy. In a crowded frame, with a crab and a computer-generated ocean competing for attention, she is the person you can hear. What has not yet happened is the screen giving her the space the stage does. The roles are still supporting, and still in stories that belong to somebody else, usually somebody white, a point made in more than one profile of her. We will own that we dreaded the tissues room every time *Best Interests* went back to it, and the reason was her: Samantha is sorry for the parents without being sorry for the decision, and Dumezweni lets both be true at once without asking us to like her for it. *Linda* and Hermione showed the lead is in her. Someone should write her a film in which she is the one being told. ## Biography Noma Dumezweni is a British actress born on 28 July 1969 in Swaziland (now Eswatini) to South African parents. She moved to England as a child and began her career in theatre. She won Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Play for her work as Ruth Younger in *A Raisin in the Sun* (2006) and as Hermione Granger in the original West End production of *Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* (2017); she reprised the latter role on Broadway and received a Tony Award nomination. Her screen credits include *Mary Poppins Returns* (2018) as Miss Penny Farthing and *The Little Mermaid* (2023) as The Queen. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) - *Best Interests* (2023), Fi1m 76, as Samantha — [page](https://film.one/tv/best-interests.md) - *The Little Mermaid* (2023), Fi1m 58, as The Queen — [page](https://film.one/film/the-little-mermaid.md) - *Normal People* (2020), Fi1m 84, as Gillian — [page](https://film.one/tv/normal-people.md) - *Mary Poppins Returns* (2018), Fi1m 67, as Miss Penny Farthing — [page](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins-returns.md) ## Complete filmography (45) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Prima Facie* (2026), Actor - *The Shards* (2026), series, as Teacher — Fi1m 56, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-shards.md) - *Murderbot* (2025), series, as Mensah - *The Friend* (2025), as Barbara - *ReEntry* (2024), as Alicia - *Presumed Innocent* (2024), series, as Judge Laryn Lyttle - *Retribution* (2023), as Angela Brickmann - *Best Interests* (2023), series, as Samantha — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/best-interests.md) - *The Little Mermaid* (2023), as The Queen — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/the-little-mermaid.md) - *The Same Storm* (2022), as Dionne Davis - *The Watcher* (2022), series, as Theodora Birch - *Only Murders in the Building* (2021), series, as Maxine Spear — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/only-murders-in-the-building.md) - *Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol* (2021), as Narrator - *Made for Love* (2021), series, as Dr. Fiffany Hodeck - *Letters Live from the Archive: Union Chapel* (2021), as (voiceover) - *The Undoing* (2020), series, as Hayley Fitzgerald — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-undoing.md) - *Normal People* (2020), series, as Gillian — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/normal-people.md) - *The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind* (2019), as Edith Sikelo - *The Kid Who Would Be King* (2019), as Mrs. Lee - *Mary Poppins Returns* (2018), as Miss Penny Farthing — Fi1m 67, [page](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins-returns.md) - *Black Earth Rising* (2018), series, as Alice Munezero - *Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams* (2017), series, as Senior Agent Okhile - *The Roof* (2016), as Another Fan - *The Marriage of Reason & Squalor* (2015), Actor - *Out of Darkness* (2013), Actor - *Magpie Sings the Blues* (2012), as Dr. Marcia Hammond - *Teeth* (2012), as Mrs. Taylor - *The Color of Magic 2in1* (2010), as Marchessa - *Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead* (2009), as Capt Magambo - *Fallout* (2008), as Joyce Abena - *The Colour of Magic* (2008), series, as Marchessa - *The Last Enemy* (2008), series, as Valerie - *Fallen Angel* (2007), series, as Carla - *The Grey Man* (2007), as Sergeant - *Mysterious Creatures* (2006), as Chanelle Pinkerton - *Doctor Who* (2005), series, as Captain Magambo — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/doctor-who-2005.md) - *Shameless* (2004), series, as Mrs. Newman — Fi1m 75, [page](https://film.one/tv/shameless.md) - *New Tricks* (2004), series, Actor - *Dirty Pretty Things* (2002), as Celia - *Macbeth* (2001), as Weird Sister - *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* (1999), series, as Kathryn Tynan - *Midsomer Murders* (1997), series, as Ailsa Probert — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/tv/midsomer-murders.md) - *Silent Witness* (1996), series, Actor - *Law & Order* (1990), series, as Chief Kathryn Tynan — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/tv/law-and-order.md) - *Nature* (1982), series, as Narrator (voice) ## Gallery - ![Noma Dumezwen in a 2018 Tony Awards video, "Broadway in One Word"](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-30905eb809a2.png) Noma Dumezwen in a 2018 Tony Awards video, "Broadway in One Word" — The Tony Awards, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/NomaDumezwen2018.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![English actress Noma Dumezweni in a frame from Out of Darkness, 2012 short film by Manjinder Virk. (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-362fca8d400b.jpg) English actress Noma Dumezweni in a frame from Out of Darkness, 2012 short film by Manjinder Virk. (2013) — Mango Films (Manjinder Virk), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Noma_Dumezweni_Out_of_Darkness.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Noma Dumezweni, actress, during the at 62nd New York Film Festival in 2024 at Alice Tully Hall for the movie The Friend.](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-7c962f755e88.jpg) Noma Dumezweni, actress, during the at 62nd New York Film Festival in 2024 at Alice Tully Hall for the movie The Friend. — Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Noma_Dumezweni_at_the_2024_New_York_Film_Festival.jpg/1280px-Noma_Dumezweni_at_the_2024_New_York_Film_Festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Noma Dumezweni, actress, during the at 62nd New York Film Festival in 2024 at Alice Tully Hall for the movie The Friend.](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-4c8bbabced66.jpg) Noma Dumezweni, actress, during the at 62nd New York Film Festival in 2024 at Alice Tully Hall for the movie The Friend. — Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Noma_Dumezweni_at_the_2024_New_York_Film_Festival_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Noma_Dumezweni_at_the_2024_New_York_Film_Festival_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Noma Dumezweni](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-1cf0e67886b9.jpg) Noma Dumezweni — Image via TMDB - ![Noma Dumezweni](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-e43606023bd6.jpg) Noma Dumezweni — Image via TMDB - ![Noma Dumezweni](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-824f2f906815.jpg) Noma Dumezweni — Image via TMDB - ![Noma Dumezweni](https://film.one/media/person/17775/gallery-36681ad328ce.jpg) Noma Dumezweni — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won - BBC 100 Women 2018: BBC 100 Women (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/noma-dumezweni