The Evolution of Amandla Stenberg's Career

Whenever a child actor makes it to the spotlight, there’s always a question about how they’re going to handle the pressure that comes with fame. Some crumble, while others shine even brighter than their first appearance. One of the child actors who made it to the big stage is Amandla Stenberg.

Not only has Amanda gone on to work on dozens of big projects, but she has also taken to activism. Today, she is using her platform to help spread awareness of the struggles of a BIPOC person. Not only does she have to deal with underlying racism in the industry, but as a gay, she also has to deal with homophobia which is still very prevalent today.

A lot of people believe that playing Rue in The Hunger Games was Amandla’s first gig, but it was actually the second one. Amandla began her career in 2011 when she featured in Colombiana. While her performance was good, it mostly went unnoticed.

The Hunger Games is what shot Amandla into the limelight. Her outstanding performance not only gained her dozens of fans, but she also won the Choice Movie Chemistry in the Teen Choice Awards for how well she worked with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) in the film.

After that, Amandla appeared in television series, including A Taste of Romance, Sleepy Hollow, and Mr. Robinson. Her next big film project came in 2014 when she voiced Bia in Rio 2.

Come 2016, Amandla had already amassed a big following. That is when she came out as bisexual. Dozens of critics immediately jumped on this, and said she was only coming out due to her politics. But Amandla handled the criticisms well and went on to become an activist for the right to choose.

Amandla is known as an intersectional feminist. This means that she belongs to several marginalized groups and that she campaigns for all of them. She is very vocal on social media about social injustice, which has gained her an enormous following of over 2 million followers on Instagram.

Because of this, Amandla has been awarded multiple times for her work off-screen. She was named in Time Magazine’s list of most influential teens not once, but twice. She also picked up the title of “Feminist Celebrity of the Year” from Ms. Foundation for Women in 2016. In 2019, the Human Rights Campaign gave her the Visibility Award.

Amandla also played a main role in “The Hate U Give,” a movie tackling the subjects of police brutality and racial injustice, which she later won an NAACP Image Award for.

Today, Amandla is very much active in both acting and activism. In 2023, Amandla voiced Spider-Byte in “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and she played Jonny in “My Animal.” She’s currently working on the Acolyte, a Star Wars universe TV series.

Meanwhile, she continues to champion social justice on her social media platforms, as well as attending events and giving speeches on various topics.