Over the course of the most recent awards season, I really fell for Wunmi Mosaku. She’s just a special lady – very cool, very self-possessed, very kind. She earned a BAFTA and her first Oscar nomination for Sinners and she moved through the whole awards season pregnant with her second child. Well, she had the baby! She had a boy, and the baby joined her for her British Vogue photoshoot. She’s currently promoting The Social Reckoning, the sequel to The Social Network. She talks about the film, the awards season and everything else with British Vogue:

The experience of filming Sinners was unforgettable. “It was so invigorating; being around creatives like Ryan [Coogler], who would change one word and it would break a whole scene open. I was so inspired by him, so inspired by my character and felt so connected to my purpose and my heritage.”

Going to all of those awards shows while pregnant: “I was struggling with pain, stretching ligaments and exhaustion. So making sure I could last the night was key. If I could wear my belly band under something, that was an added bonus…”

On social media: Mosaku is “all for people using [it] less. Adults and children, but children for sure. I think the world felt a little safer, in many ways, before social media.” She is in favour of the UK government’s planned ban on social media for under-16s, but wants more: “more regulations for social media platforms and owners, more fact-checking, more truth-telling, less radicalisation, fewer echo chambers and bubbles. But that doesn’t benefit the people doing the manipulating and those are the guys in charge.”

Playing Annie in Sinners changed her. “[When I played Annie], I had a little bit of magic in me, and I’m like, ‘I want it back, please.’” In a bid to capture that essence, Wunmi has begun a herbalism course (we share stories of moringa – she mixes it in her porridge). And she is soon to launch a maternity wear line: Iyadé (a Yoruba word meaning “mother has arrived”). I am baffled – when she is not acting, being photographed, nursing her 10-week-old, being present for her husband and daughter, taking her Yoruba classes and herbalism course, she is also designing clothes? Does she rest? “I don’t know how to sit still,” she laughs. “I have ADHD. And I know Iyadé needs to exist. I can’t be the only mother who is disappointed with maternity and nursing wear. I cannot be the only person.”

Love yourself: “I know that that’s the trope that we have been sold – and we have come to accept that the world does not see us as lovable. I don’t think anyone called me pretty once growing up [besides my parents]. Like, not once. Except my uncle Hubert. I was 12 when he died, and I remember saying to my mum, ‘Who will call me pretty now?’”

Her mantra: “Love yourself or hurt yourself.” She breaks it down further: “I understand that people feel like they have to change because the patriarchy, capitalism too, says, ‘You’re worthy if you look like this; you’re worthy if you do this; you’re worthy if you have this in your account… you’re worthy if you’re thin or sculpted.’” For many, that “means rib reconstructions and ab etching. These are all signs that they throw out at you and, if you have the money, you can get closer to it each time. So I really understand anyone doing anything [like that]. I just feel like I’ve always been so far away from it [the ideal] that in order to try and achieve it I would really have to hurt myself to get there.”

No more bullies allowed on set: Post Sinners, Mosaku was concerned she “had come to a point in my career that I was getting a little bit jaded by the industry”. She has come to realise that there are things she will not tolerate. “There need not be one bad spirit, one bad energy on the set,” she says, unleashing that Mancunian schoolgirl. “If I see one bully on set, I am going to stand up. I mean it. No more quiet. I’m going to stand up and say something. I don’t care who it is. It could be a dame or a sir, I don’t care who it is. I will have the courage to stand up to bad behaviour…. I’m just not going to sit and hear negativity; because if I am choosing to take this job and be away from my family, my daughter, my son, let it be joyful. Let it only be joyful.”

[From British Vogue]

“Love yourself or hurt yourself” is a powerful mantra. It’s a radical concept that all women, of all races and skin tones, should love themselves and fully embrace who they are and how they look. And god, Wunmi is beautiful and she just moves through the world with such grace and joy. Anyway, I’m glad she’s entered a new phase of her career and I hope she keeps rocking up to all kinds of projects.

Oscars juggernaut 'Sinners' turned Mancunian actor Wunmi Mosaku into a global star. Now, her dazzling red-carpet run continues with a lead role in 'The Social Reckoning' and a full diary of ambitious projects ahead. The actor makes her debut on the cover of the October 2026 issue… pic.twitter.com/BMTITodxyu

— British Vogue (@BritishVogue) September 16, 2026

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of British Vogue.