Annie Ilonzeh

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1983 age 0

   Born

2. 2009 age 26

   CreditHe's Just Not That Into You

3. 2010 age 27

   CreditPercy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

• JSJimmi Simpson2 titles
• AAAmy Acker2 titles
• NJNeil Jackson2 titles
• CMCamryn Manheim2 titles
• KPKathleen Rose Perkins2 titles
• BPBusy Philipps2 titles
• CRCristine Rose2 titles
• CSChelan Simmons2 titles
• DLDan Lauria2 titles
• RDRamin Djawadi1 title

• Yep, sisters. And I don’t say that kind of stuff lightly. When you come from a big family of siblings, you don’t tack on extra people unnecessarily, just because. But yeah, those girls, we became each other’s sisters, and that will never change.

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Absolutely. It’s not even the images that we’re seeing on TV. I mean, it is that, but it’s not only limited to that, but it’s also who’s behind the camera, who’s writing the stories, and even who’s conducting and who’s directing that story and giving it to the public. Being a black woman in Hollywood, a lot of the characters that I play are written by white men. And recently there was a problem with the verbiage. And she wouldn’t talk like that. This is a person that 1. is a man, but also white. I wouldn’t say that! I would never say that!

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0

• When I turn on the TV, I want to see people who look like me! I do! Being a kid, I didn’t see people that had white mothers and black Dads, or even if their Mom was white and their Dad was black, I didn’t see that diversity in families, like being represented on television, which is actually something that I’m writing right now. I was like “you know what, I didn’t see it”. This is the time in Hollywood that we’re all calling it out, I need to write this! It’s not fair for me to just talk about it. I also don’t see it enough in the writers rooms and on sets in terms of crews.

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0

• I used to play basketball. I was an athlete. My main sports were basketball, soccer, and track, and I actually went to college on a basketball scholarship. I had never really traveled the world at all. The only trips I’d taken were road trips during college. I just wanted to be a big jock and maybe play professional basketball overseas.

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Then I came to LA with my girlfriends just to visit, and I got bit by the bug so hard. I just knew this was what I wanted to do. I ran into this guy who was a manager — he managed Halle Berry and Taraji P. Henson at the time, along with some other big names. I got really lucky meeting him because that just doesn’t happen. And thank God I was kind of green and naive, a little too trusting. Not the jaded Annie you see before you now. Just kidding. Not kidding.

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The rest was kind of history. I had never been on a stage or taken an acting class before moving to LA. There was something really refreshing about my approach, I think, but also very green and naive. That probably helped push me through some of the harder moments. I didn’t fully grasp how tough this business was. I started with a lot of commercials, then got on a soap, and years later, after many TV shows and movies, I landed here on SWAT.

  Annie Ilonzeh, CC BY-SA 4.0