How actress Pepi Sonuga keeps the faith — even when Hollywood says, ‘We don’t need you’

The up-and-coming Nigerian actress believes that performing runs in her DNA. That doesn’t mean showbiz has come easy.

A woman with long dark hair rests her chin on her hand, wearing star-shaped earrings and a black outfit against a maroon background with swirling lines. — Pepi Sonuga’s star is on the rise. | Source: Show art by Jess Hutchison

By Sophie BearmanProduced by Tessa Kramer and Jasmyn MorrisEngineered by Michelle LanzPublished Oct. 28, 2025 • 6:01am

On The Standard’s music podcast “Life in Seven Songs,” we ask some of the world’s most fascinating people: What songs tell the story of your life?

This week’s podcast guest is Pepi Sonuga, a Nigerian-born actress and rising Hollywood star. Most recently, she appeared in “The Six Triple Eight,” a Tyler Perry drama about the only all-Black, all-female battalion to serve overseas in World War II. She’s also known for roles in “Pam & Tommy,” “Queens,” and “General Hospital.”

Sonuga grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, raised by a single mother and dreaming of Hollywood stardom while watching Barney tapes her mom brought home from her job as a flight attendant.

The purple dinosaur “really gave me permission,” she recalls. “‘Wow, OK. I’m gonna be something other than what every Nigerian kid is expected to be: a doctor, lawyer, engineer. I’m gonna be a rock star.’”

That childhood conviction helped Sonuga weather the culture shock of moving to Los Angeles at age 10, enduring bullying as a teen, and spending years grinding in an industry that told her she was replaceable.

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“Hollywood wasn’t just throwing the doors open saying, ‘Yes, Pepi Sonuga, we’ve been waiting for you!’” she says. “No, Hollywood is like, ‘Nope. We don’t need you. We’ve got 10 of you.’ So I have to have that faith in myself.”

Sonuga kept pushing — with a little help from Charli XCX’s 2017 anthem “Dreamer.”

Now, with her star firmly on the rise, she joins “Life in Seven Songs” to reflect on her journey, the music that defined her girlhood, and her ultimate dream: to uplift her country of origin.

“There’s so many capable, brilliant, hardworking people back home [in Nigeria], and I would’ve been one of them,” she says. “The only difference was that for some reason God chose to bless me and bless my mom to bring me here and give me these opportunities. It makes me proud and happy — but it also makes me sad when I think of the little girl just like me who deserves everything she dreams about too.”

Here’s her playlist.