Shaniqua Okwok

Acting · b. 1997 · Surrey, England, UK

Shaniqua Okwok is a British actress. She is best known for her roles as Maia in Paramount+ series The Flatshare (2022) and Dominique in the Sky Max series Wolfe (2021). Okwok has also made appearances as Solly Babatunde in It's a Sin (2021), Patty in Small Axe, Lotta Nagel in Van der Valk, and Leah in War of the Worlds.

Full biography

Okwok was born in Surrey to a Ugandan mother and a Jamaican father. She attended The BRIT School and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where she graduated in 2018. After receiving the Laurence Olivier Bursary Award from the Official London Theatre in 2017, she went on to make her television debut on BBC One in 2018 as Helen Nedarson in Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators.

Okwok originally wanted to be a stock broker and planned to study economics at LSE. However, she claims she "fell into acting and it kept falling into place"

Okwok got involved in social justice work early on in her acting career. Following her graduation from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and during the summer of 2020, Okwok led a student campaign of hundreds to call out the "words and actions of open and overt racism" that occurred during her tenure at the institute, including an incident of being called a "slave" during a class. Okwok remains an active advocate for the protection of minority actors to this day.