All About Chipo Chung
Chipo Chung is a Rada-trained Zimbabwean stage and screen actress as well as an activist. Born in Tanzania in 1977, Chipo is known for her roles in Sunshine (2007). She is based in London.
Chipo Chung was born as a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is of half Zimbabwean and half Chinese descent. Her given name Chipo means “gift” in the Shona language. She spent her first two years in refugee camps in Mozambique with thousands of young people who were escaping the war in then-Rhodesia.
Chung was raised in Harare where she attended Dominican Convent High School and developed her acting with the mixed-race theatre company Over the Edge. At eighteen, she moved to the United States where her mother Fay Chung was working for the United Nations. She studied at Yale University and graduated cum laude with a double major in Theatre Studies and Fine Art.
Career
Chipo was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and graduated in 2003. She went on to become one of the only two women in councils. She is also a committee member on the boards of a number of organisations.
Over her career, Chipo has appeared in multiple films including, ‘In the Loop’ (2009), Proof (2005) and Doctor Who, Sunshine (2007), The Las Enermy, Dalziell and Pascoe, Holby City and Absolute Power. She played a character called The Master in the series Into the Badlands (2015). In the episode Doctor Who: Utopia (2007) she played a character killed by Derek Jacobi’s Master character.
In 2015 she won the role of Mary Magdalene in the TV series, A.D. The Bible Continues. The show was hailed for its international and multi-racial casting and opened to 11 million viewers in April 2015.
She has also maintained a theatre career and appeared in, The Overwhelming and Phèdre, On Religion, Fallujah, Gaudeamus, Talking to Terrorists, The Lunatic Queen, Tall Phoenix, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Mayor of Zalamea and Hamlet.
The actress has even been on radio shows like Dear Mr. Lampard, Venus in Cooper, Just like Ronaldinho and Falco and Sagila.
Chipo is a founder member of Zimbabwe’s acclaimed Over the Edge Theatre Company.
Activism
Chung co-founded alongside founder Nick Reding the charity SAFE-Kenya[3] which develops theatre for social change in Kenya, focusing on HIV education and abolishing clitoridectomy, and currently sits on its Board of Trustees. She works closely with the charity Peace Direct in support of Envision Zimbabwe, a women’s trust that works towards consensus-building and peace in Zimbabwe. She also sits on the RADA Council and British Equity’s International Committee for Artists’ Freedom (ICAF).
Personality
According to a friend of hers, Bonnie Greer, Chipo stood out from her classmates. She’s beautiful and very grave and one can see a sharp intelligence in her eyes. She takes art very seriously and loves to figure out the meaning of it on a profound level. She loves visiting museums and talking about business and art. She also loves drinking wine.
Nothing about her is conventional. She’s quite precise about everything she does – she even sits ramrod straight.
