---
name: "Paapa Essiedu"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/paapa-essiedu"
fi1m_id: "paapa-essiedu"
imdb_id: "nm5469396"
tmdb_id: 1611824
wikidata_id: "Q23882712"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "11 June 1990"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 78
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-21T04:28:48.463043+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."
---

# Paapa Essiedu

## Identity

Paapa Essiedu

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/paapa-essiedu
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** paapa-essiedu
- **IMDb ID:** nm5469396
- **TMDB ID:** 1611824
- **Wikidata ID:** Q23882712
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paapa_Essiedu, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23882712, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5469396/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1611824

Actor. Born 11 June 1990 in Southwark, London, England, UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 11 June 1990, Southwark, London, England, UK
- **Active:** 2018–present
- **Also known as:** Paapa Kwaakye Essiedu
- **Average Fi1m score:** 78, as actor, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 78 (1), 2020s 78 (4)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 78 to 74 across 4 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 2 of 4 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Drama 5, Action & Adventure 2, Crime 2, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 1
- **Screen time:** 2 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $4m across 1 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paapa_Essiedu, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q23882712, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5469396/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1611824

## Coming up

- *Harry Potter* (2026-12-25), as Severus Snape — [page](https://film.one/tv/harry-potter.md)

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*I May Destroy You*](https://film.one/tv/i-may-destroy-you.md) (88)
- **Apple TV:** [*Kiri*](https://film.one/tv/kiri.md) (78)
- **Netflix:** [*The Outrun*](https://film.one/film/the-outrun.md) (72)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Paapa Essiedu

> Paapa Essiedu plays men who keep the important thing to themselves, and lets us see what the keeping costs. Television has given him his best part so far; film has mostly given him people to be missed once they have gone.

Kwame Acheamong, in *I May Destroy You* (2020), is a fitness instructor who arranges his sex life through an app and keeps everything else to himself, and Paapa Essiedu plays him almost entirely by what he does not do. On a sofa with Arabella and Terry he is quick, loose and funny, the friend who says the thing the other two are only thinking. Alone, or with a stranger, the face closes and stays closed. The series later gives Kwame a story of his own, which we will not describe, and Essiedu plays the aftermath so quietly that it took us a full episode to realise how frightened we were for him. Nothing in his manner had changed; that was the point.

He came to the screen late and from the stage. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012 and by 2016 was its Hamlet, the first Black actor to play the part for the company. Television and film offered him small things for the rest of the decade, several of them stereotypical supporting parts in period pieces. Michaela Coel changed that. Writing, co-directing and acting opposite him, she wrote Kwame as fully as she wrote herself, and he has not been short of work since: *Gangs of London*, *The Lazarus Project* and *Black Mirror* on television; *Men* (2022), for Alex Garland, and *The Outrun* (2024) in cinemas. Between them he keeps going back to the theatre, most notably to play several men in one evening in Caryl Churchill's *A Number* (2022).

What he does best is withhold. He said as much of Kwame, that the interesting route was 'what he doesn't say rather than what he does say', and that is the method: the feeling is there, visible if you look, and never announced. It is a rare thing on screen, where most actors show us the emotion to be safe, and it depends on the writing. Coel gave him room and silences to fill. *The Outrun* does not. His Daynin, the man Saoirse Ronan's Rona leaves behind in London, is warm and hurt and off the screen before we have learned anything about him that is not about her; Nora Fingscheidt's film knows what he is for and does not much wonder who he is. He plays it well. There is simply not much of it.

That has been the shape of his film career so far: good in the corner of somebody else's picture. The stage keeps handing him whole men and the cinema keeps handing him useful ones. What we would like to see next is a film that treats him as Coel did, as a person whose life carries on when the camera is elsewhere, and then has the nerve to leave the camera on him.

## Biography

Paapa Kwaakye Essiedu is a British actor. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and began his career in 2012 with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in productions including *The Merry Wives of Windsor* (2012), *Hamlet* (2016) and *King Lear* (2016).

His screen breakthrough came with the role of Kwame in the 2020 series *I May Destroy You*. He has appeared in films including *Murder on the Orient Express* (2017), *Men* (2022), *Genie* (2023) and *The Outrun* (2024) as Daynin. Other television credits include *Gangs of London* (2020–2022), *The Lazarus Project* (2022–2023) and *Black Doves* (2024).

Essiedu has won a Laurence Olivier Award and an Independent Spirit Award, and received nominations for a British Academy Television Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *The Outrun* (2024), Fi1m 72, as Daynin — [page](https://film.one/film/the-outrun.md)
- *The Lazarus Project* (2022), Fi1m 78, as George Addo — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-lazarus-project.md)
- *Gangs of London* (2020), Fi1m 74, as Alexander Dumani — [page](https://film.one/tv/gangs-of-london.md)
- *I May Destroy You* (2020), Fi1m 88, as Kwame Acheamong — [page](https://film.one/tv/i-may-destroy-you.md)
- *Kiri* (2018), Fi1m 78, as Nate Akindele — [page](https://film.one/tv/kiri.md)

## Complete filmography (39)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Harry Potter* (2026), series, as Severus Snape — coming soon, [page](https://film.one/tv/harry-potter.md)
- *Falling* (2026), series, as David
- *National Theatre Live: All My Sons* (2026), as Chris Keller
- *Babies* (2026), series, as Stephen
- *Laundreams* (2025), as Danny
- *National Theatre Live: Death of England: Delroy* (2025), as Delroy
- *Black Doves* (2024), series, as Elmore Fitch
- *The Outrun* (2024), as Daynin — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/the-outrun.md)
- *National Theatre Live: The Effect* (2024), as Tristan
- *Genie* (2023), as Bernard Bottle
- *The Lazarus Project* (2022), series, as George Addo — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-lazarus-project.md)
- *Men* (2022), as James
- *Anne Boleyn* (2021), series, as George Boleyn
- *Femme* (2021), as Jordan
- *The Exit Plan* (2021), as Zeke
- *Unsaid Stories* (2020), series, as Michael
- *I May Destroy You* (2020), series, as Kwame Acheamong — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/tv/i-may-destroy-you.md)
- *Gangs of London* (2020), series, as Alexander Dumani — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/tv/gangs-of-london.md)
- *Stand Still* (2019), as David
- *The Capture* (2019), series, as Isaac Turner MP, Isaac Turner
- *Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70* (2018), as Narrator
- *Black Earth Rising* (2018), series, as Jaalen
- *Press* (2018), series, as Ed Washburn
- *Kiri* (2018), series, as Nate Akindele — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/kiri.md)
- *The Miniaturist* (2017), series, as Otto
- *The Miniaturist* (2017), as Otto
- *Murder on the Orient Express* (2017), as Young Policeman
- *Canned* (2017), as Charlie
- *RSC Live: King Lear* (2016), as Edmund
- *RSC Live: Hamlet* (2016), as Hamlet
- *A Midsummer Night's Dream* (2016), as Demetrius
- *Shakespeare Live! From the RSC* (2016), as Hamlet
- *Not Safe for Work* (2015), series, as Paul
- *National Theatre Live: King Lear* (2014), as The Duke of Burgundy
- *Utopia* (2013), series, as Roy — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/utopia.md)
- *Black Mirror* (2011), series, as Gaap — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/tv/black-mirror.md)
- *The Scurry*, Actor
- *Sweet Dreams*, as Billy
- *Tyrant*, Actor

## Gallery

- ![Hay Festival 2016 - Panel with Brotton, Essiedu, Peake](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-d338b39b7d2f.jpg) Hay Festival 2016 - Panel with Brotton, Essiedu, Peake — Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Hayfestival-2016-brotton-essiedu-peake.jpg/1280px-Hayfestival-2016-brotton-essiedu-peake.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Nora Fingscheidt, Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu and Amy Liptrot presenting the movie The Outrun at the Berlinale 2024](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-26994a9dcb7e.jpg) Nora Fingscheidt, Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu and Amy Liptrot presenting the movie The Outrun at the Berlinale 2024 — Martin Kraft, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/MKr349696_Nora_Fingscheidt%2C_Saoirse_Ronan%2C_Paapa_Essiedu_und_Amy_Liptrot_%28The_Outrun%2C_Berlinale_2024%29.jpg/1280px-MKr349696_Nora_Fingscheidt%2C_Saoirse_Ronan%2C_Paapa_Essiedu_und_Amy_Liptrot_%28The_Outrun%2C_Berlinale_2024%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Paapa Essiedu at Hay Festival 2016 - Panel with Brotton, Essiedu, Peake](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-9db81ab3bd0f.jpg) Paapa Essiedu at Hay Festival 2016 - Panel with Brotton, Essiedu, Peake — Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Paapa_Essiedu_%282016%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Paapa Essiedu](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-2e16dcafffa4.jpg) Paapa Essiedu — Martin Kraft, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Paapa_Essiedu_%28The_Outrun%2C_Berlinale_2024%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Paapa_Essiedu_%28The_Outrun%2C_Berlinale_2024%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Paapa Essiedu](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-97c7505a4f6c.jpg) Paapa Essiedu — Image via TMDB
- ![Paapa Essiedu](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-802b70ac8065.jpg) Paapa Essiedu — Image via TMDB
- ![Paapa Essiedu](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-c7cbdac0e1c1.jpg) Paapa Essiedu — Image via TMDB
- ![Paapa Essiedu at the TV BAFTA red carpet, May 26 (2026)](https://film.one/media/person/10896/gallery-d3fe17dbcbe1.jpg) Paapa Essiedu at the TV BAFTA red carpet, May 26 (2026) — JaceMerlyn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Paapa_Essiedu_at_BAFTAs_2026_01.jpg/1280px-Paapa_Essiedu_at_BAFTAs_2026_01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 2 won

- Independent Spirit Awards 2021: Independent Spirit Award (won)
- Ian Charleson Awards 2016: Ian Charleson Awards (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/paapa-essiedu