Annie Ilonzeh

Annette Ngozi Ilonzeh (born August 23, 1983) is an American actress. From 2010 to 2011, she played Maya Ward on the ABC daytime soap opera General Hospital, and later starred as Kate Prince in the short-lived ABC reboot of Charlie's Angels. Quotes 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. 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! 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. Interview: Peppermint’s Annie Ilonzeh 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. 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. 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 on ‘S.W.A.T.’, "Full-Circle Moments, and Fighting for What Matters", Authority Magazine (May 14, 2025) External links 2679753 Category:1983 births Category:Living people Category:Actresses from Texas Category:Igbo people