Samira Wiley facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Samira Wiley
Wiley in 2013
Born	Samira Denise Wiley (1987-04-15) April 15, 1987 (age 38) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Education	Temple University Juilliard School (BFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2011–present
Spouse(s)	Lauren Morelli ​ (m. 2017)​
Children	1
Relatives	Asante Blackk (nephew)

Samira Denise Wiley (born April 15, 1987) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Poussey Washington in the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019) and as Moira in the Hulu dystopian drama series The Handmaid's Tale (2017–present), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Wiley also had starring roles in such films as The Sitter (2011), Nerve (2016), Detroit (2017), and Social Animals (2018). She also narrated the Netflix documentary Night on Earth (2020).

Early life

Wiley was raised in Washington, D.C. Her parents, Christine and Dennis W. Wiley, were the co-pastors of Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ until 2017. Wiley's parents have been referred to as "pillars of the LGBT religious community," as the Covenant Baptist Church was the only Baptist church in D.C. performing same-sex unions in 2007. She has two siblings: Aiyana Ma'at and Joshua Wiley.

Wiley attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Juilliard School in New York City, graduating in 2010. At Juilliard, she trained in theater performance and worked mainly in theater in her early career.

Career

Wiley's first major acting role was in the comedy film The Sitter (2011). In 2011, Wiley played Maria in a theater production of Love's Labour's Lost by The Public Theater.

When the Netflix television series Orange Is the New Black —based on Piper Kerman's memoir of the same name— came into development, Wiley was told about the auditions by a friend from Juilliard, Marco Ramirez, who was a writer for the show. Wiley's future wife, Lauren Morelli, was also a writer on the show. After discovering that fellow Juilliard alumni and friend, actress Danielle Brooks, had also auditioned for, and won, the role of Tastee, Wiley asked to rehearse her lines with her, as she was auditioning for the role of Poussey Washington (the on-screen best friend of Brooks' character), a role for which she was ultimately cast. After winning the audition, Wiley appeared in all twelve episodes of the series' first season, and featured prominently throughout the second season. The darker, more violent, plot of the second season allowed for the growth of Wiley's character, whose evolved storylines and level-headed, peaceable nature led to Wiley's prolonged screen exposure and ultimate development as a fan-favorite. Her character's childhood and adolescence as a traveled, educated and strictly-disciplined "military brat" are explored, in addition to the chain of events leading up to her incarceration. Wiley was promoted to series-regular for the third season. The fourth season revolves heavily around her character, leading up to the stunned and saddened reactions within the prison upon her beloved character's untimely passing at the hands of a young prison officer, while being detained during a prison riot.

In between seasons of Orange Is the New Black, Wiley filmed Rob the Mob (2014), an independent crime film directed by Raymond De Felitta. She appeared in an advertisement for the digital monetary service PayPal in 2014. ..... In December 2015, it was announced Wiley had been cast to voice the titular character in the video game The Walking Dead: Michonne. The game was released by Telltale Games in February 2016. In 2017, she narrated one of two versions of Max Brooks' book, Minecraft: The Island: A Novel. Wiley also starred in a film called 37 (2016), a true story of thirty-seven people who witness a murder and none call the police or intervene. In 2016, she starred in a new play by Quiara Alegría Hudes called Daphne's Dive.

She competed against New Black co-star Laverne Cox in an episode of Spike's Lip Sync Battle. With performances of "Un-Break My Heart" by Toni Braxton and "O.P.P." by Naughty by Nature, Wiley emerged victorious.

Wiley was featured in Maniac Magazine, appearing on the cover and in an editorial of the 2014 September/October issue displaying "a series of bold, chic, high fashion looks." She was also featured on the cover of 2014 edition of Out magazine, along with Sam Smith, Elliot Page, and Zachary Quinto.

In 2017, Wiley began playing Moira in the Hulu television series The Handmaid's Tale. She portrayed the playwright Lorraine Hansberry in the docu-series Equal in 2020. In 2022, she co-produced a documentary about body positivity with the Gratitude Project. In 2024, she was cast as a CIA agent in the Sky Original series Atomic.

Awards

In 2014, Wiley was named Out magazine's Ingenue of the Year. In February 2015, she was awarded the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award. .....

In 2017, Wiley received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale, going on to win Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series the following year.

In November 2017, Wiley was nominated to Out magazine's "OUT100" for 2017 in recognition of her work and her visibility.

Personal life

On October 4, 2016, Wiley announced her engagement to Orange Is the New Black writer Lauren Morelli and they married on March 25, 2017. Morelli gave birth to their first child, a daughter, on April 11, 2021.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video game

See also

In Spanish: Samira Wiley para niños

• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of LGBT people from New York City
• NYC Pride March