Nigerian-British actress Wunmi Mosaku bags The Black Reel Award

The HBO crime drama was also nominated for Outstanding Limited Series, Directing (Reinaldo Marcus Green of King Richard fame), Writing (for D. Watkins), and Supporting Actor (Jamie Hector from The Wire and Bosch).

‘We Own This City’ chronicles a real-life scandal that broke in 2017: the story of a city held to ransom by its own police force when the policies of drug prohibition and mass arrest were championed at the expense of meaningful police work.

“It was quite emotional to be hearing the stories from passersby telling us what it felt like, and what hasn’t changed, and what needs to change,” says Mosaku, who won a BAFTA for ‘Damilola, Our Loved Boy’ and a British Independent Film Award for ‘His House’; was nominated for Critics Choice, Critics Choice Super and Screen Actors Guild awards for ‘Lovecraft Country’; and has acted in Emmy-nominated shows like ‘Loki’, ‘Luther’ and ‘The End of The F***king World’.

In ‘We Own This City’, Mosaku’s character, Nicole Steele, is one of the few who is not based on any one real-life individual, but rather represents a number of people in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. “I felt like Nicole while I was reading the scripts,” Mosaku told The Guardian. “I was like, ‘How did this happen?!’”

For the actress, who was born in Zaria in Nigeria but has lived most of her life in the UK, the issues raised in the series are both personal and very real. “It’s very different living here now and being Black in America, being married to an African American, knowing that my future is here and therefore, my safety is in the hands of the people in charge. It’s very sobering and scary. It does feel different, being in a country where police officers have guns. That’s not a thing in the UK.”

In addition to Mosaku, ‘We Own This City’ also stars Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Jon Bernthal, Emmy nominee Josh Charles, Black Reel nominee David Corenswet, SAG award winner Dagmara Domińczyk, and Darrell Britt-Gibson, Domenick Lombardozzi, Tray Chaney, Delaney Williams, Jermaine Crawford, Anwan Glover, Chris Clanton, Nathan Corbett, Maria Broom, Susan Rome and Michael Salconi.