Juggling new motherhood with the biggest moments of her career is nothing new to Wunmi. She tells me she was breastfeeding during the filming of Sinners, and now, on weekends between red carpets, she takes her daughter – whom she’s raising with her husband, talent manager Tash Moseley, in the US – to dance classes or to see her best friends. “It gives me a different drive. I was driven before I had my daughter, but it gives me a new clarity. Now it’s not just a job – it’s time away from her. I’m very cautious about who I choose to spend my time with.”
“I’m not very calm,” she adds. “I have ADHD and I have really struggled. I’ve got into nesting mode and I’ve become fixated on [house renovations]: getting lighting in the ceiling because I feel like Americans love lamps and I can’t see anything. I also became focused on moving a door in the past four days – thank God that was cancelled. Why was I trying to do that? It’s not the right time,” she exclaims. Her neurodivergence makes her quite “homely”, as her focus outside the chaos of the entertainment industry is on trying to keep her family in order.
“I now consider my ADHD in everything, so home life takes priority over socialising or texting on a group thread – I’m not trying to read all these messages.”
Away from the spotlight, she also strips right back aesthetically. “I’m terrible at makeup. I don’t wear makeup on the day-to-day because I can’t be bothered to take it off at the end of the day. I don’t do my hair.” Wunmi says it likely has something to do with the way she was raised. “My mum only really started wearing makeup when we did, she was very particular about me having to turn 16 to wear makeup. I remember going to Boots to mark the occasion. She was the same with alcohol. She didn’t drink anything and then when I turned 18, she had a wine.”
One notable thing about Wunmi’s M.O. for beauty is how she exhibits the versatility and creativity of natural hair, believing that straight hair “doesn’t suit her outfits”. Wunmi has opted instead for self-acceptance, embracing the way she looks when she wakes up in the morning. “When I was a kid, I did affirmations, telling [parts of] myself from the age of 12, ‘I love you hair, I love you skin, I love you stretch marks’. I very much believe it’s love yourself or hurt yourself.”
As she gears up for her maternity leave and what could be a historic awards-season night, Wunmi is understandably thinking about legacy and what she wants to leave behind. On a personal level, she wants to be remembered as “a woman of integrity and kindness”. But her body of work has shown the beauty and power of ordinary women. “My intention would be to be part of projects that make people look at humanity differently,” she says. “That’s what encourages me.” On that front, it’s hard to argue that she’s not already cemented that legacy.
