Jude Akuwudike (born 1965) is a Nigerian actor. He has mostly worked in the United Kingdom, on screen and stage.^[1]

He has appeared in productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre.

Born in Nigeria, West Africa,^[2] Akuwudike came to Britain and was educated at St Augustine's College in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, an independent Roman Catholic boarding school. In 1985, he began to train for an acting career at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1987.^[3]

In 1988, Akuwudike played Captain Watkin Tench in Our Country's Good at the Royal Court Theatre.^[4] His first film appearance was in the same year, as a priest in A World Apart.^[5] An early leading role came in 1989 in the play The Fatherland by Murray Watts, at the Bush Theatre at Riverside,^[6] and his first significant part on television was as Sergeant Gummer in the drama serial Virtual Murder (1991).^[7]

Throughout his career, Akuwudike has worked mainly on stage, including appearing in several productions for the National Theatre, notably Not About Nightingales, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, and Ion^{[citation needed]}. He has also appeared for the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as working on Broadway. He has also had many roles in film and television and is a voice actor.^[8]

In 1998, in the first British production of Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams, directed by Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre, Akuwudike originated the part of "the Queen", a gay prisoner.^[9] In 2002 he played the black pimp in a Royal National Theatre production of Edmond, with Kenneth Branagh in the title role.^[10]

From February to May 2011, Akuwudike was Abel Magwitch in an English Touring Theatre production of Great Expectations (adapted by Tanika Gupta), with Lynn Farleigh as Miss Havisham.^[11][12]

In the Cary Joji Fukunaga film Beasts of No Nation (2015), Akuwudike played Supreme Commander Dada Goodblood, leader of an unnamed West African country torn by civil war.^[13]

In September 2018, it was announced that Akuwudike had been cast alongside Joe Cole and Sope Dirisu in a new Cinemax television serial called Gangs of London, then in production.^[14]