Born on 8 August 1981 in Harare, Tongayi Chirisa is a Zimbabwean actor now based in the United States, and you've probably seen him on screen more than once. His first screen role was in the local soap Studio 263, playing Detective Trevor Davies, and he went on to star in the local film Tanyaradzwa (2004), which won him a National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for Best Actor in Film and Television.
After moving to South Africa, he landed a break starring alongside Leon Schuster in Mr. Bones 2: Back from the Past as Hekule, the king of Kuvukiland. From there his career kept climbing: NBC's Crusoe (as Man Friday), The Jim Gaffigan Show (as Father Nicholas), the Lifetime Whitney Houston biopic Whitney (as her brother, Gary Houston), a recurring role on iZombie, and film roles in Palm Springs and Antebellum. In 2023 he voiced Cheetor in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and landed a main role on AMC's Mayfair Witches as Ciprien Grieve, an empath investigator who's carried him through two seasons of the show so far. He then lent his voice to Yasuke in the 2025 video game Assassin's Creed Shadows, and most recently wrapped the lead in Chronos, an indie Greek-mythology thriller shot on location in Greece alongside 9-1-1's Anirudh Pisharody.
Despite that résumé, Tongayi has stayed known for being a humble, grounded presence off-screen, always ready to talk about his experiences on set.
