Gabourey Sidibe

Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe was born on May 6, 1983 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, in the New York borough of Brooklyn. Her home was not especially happy, because her parents – he of Senegalese origin, is a taxi driver, she a special education teacher turned into a street artist – separated when she was a child.

Gabby grew up in Harlem, and she wasn’t bad at acting, as she demonstrated at a few school functions. But the precariousness of her mother’s job led her to make an effort to study to achieve a secure occupation, first at school, and then at Mercy College, where she enrolled in psychology. She was preparing for an exam, when a friend of hers told her that she was going to shoot the film version of “Push”, a well-known novel by Sapphire, and that there was an audition for her main role. Of course, Claireece “Precious” Jones was a black teen with weight problems, so Gabby could fit the character. The itch to try it seized the young woman, who was selected for the role of the film by Lee Danielsamong more than 400 applicants. And it has all been praise, because her composition of a taciturn teenager, who suffers the abuse of a father who leaves her pregnant, and the lack of maternal attention, are impressive. In the cast, she is well supported by Mo’nique –another of the film’s surprises, but who had acting experience– and Mariah Carey , but of course she is the queen of the show, she has managed to perfectly capture seriousness and pain internalized of his character, surely drinking in his own vital experience. As a result, she has been nominated for numerous awards in her only film role to date.

It is too soon to say if Sidibe’s career will have the desired continuity, it is clear that her physique is a major drawback, although she dreams without complexes, like her own character. At the moment she has finished shooting Yelling to the Sky , another family drama written and directed by a woman, Victoria Mahoney, where she is accompanied by Tim Blake Nelson and Zoë Kravitz .