Rakie Ayola

Rakie Ayola is a producer and critically acclaimed actress who grew up in the Ely district of Cardiff. Her career spans 36 years and she is recipient of a BAFTA Best Supporting Actress Award, a BAFTA Cymru Best Actress Award and the BAFTA Cymru Sian Phillips Award. 

Rakie is a graduate and Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD), with an Honorary Doctorate from Warwick University and an Honorary Fellowship from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Aberystwyth University. She is a Trustee of Welsh National Theatre, Fuel Theatre and Wayout Arts, and is an Ambassador for the Anthony Walker Foundation. In addition, she is a Patron of the Actor’s Children’s Trust, the Childhood Tumour Trust, Collage Voices and Praxis Performing Arts.

Her recent work includes playing Persephone in Kaos (Netflix), starring in Season Two of The Pact (also Executive Producer) and appearing opposite Rhys Ifans in Ed Thomas’ play On Bear Ridge, for which she won the BBTA Best Female Performance. Rakie can also be seen starring alongside Saoirse Ronan in upcoming feature film Bad Apples (Pulse Films for Paramount), directed by Jonatan Etzler. In 2017 she created Shanty Productions with her husband Adam Smethurst and recently exec-produced their award-winning short film Hedgehog. She has recently completed filming Falling, written by Jack Thorne (Channel 4).