Charmaine Bingwa

Biography

A Zimbabwean / Australian actor, Bingwa was born in Perth, Western Australia. She began her career as a singer, but when completing her Bachelor of Music at university, until she took acting as one of her final electives. She completed the acting course in addition to her music degree and signed with an acting agent soon after graduating.

She plays Carmen Moyo on The Good Fight (2017) and Dodienne, wife of Peter (Will Smith) and as fierce and formidable warrior Isisa in King Shaka. Bingwa also starred, wrote, produced and co-directed the series Little Sista, which won the LGBT Toronto Film Festival.

In 2018, she won the Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance Scholarship to study at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York and then won the Heath Ledger Scholarship, becoming the first woman of color and openly gay recipient.

In a 2021 interview with the Advocate she described herself as an “…African-Australian, born [in] Australia, with not many people reflective of my culture around, who wanted to pursue a career in Hollywood, who identifies as gay.”