Tahirah Amandla Sharif was born in London, United Kingdom. Her parents immigrated to London as children in the 1960s. Her mother is from Pakistan, and her father from Jamaica. Sharif grew up in Brixton, South London. She attended Pimlico Secondary School. Her first name is an Arabic name, which means “pure” in Urdu, her mother's native tongue. Her middle name ‘Amandla’ means “power”. It was chanted in the days of resistance against apartheid in South Africa. Her mother loved the idea of her daughter's name meaning “pure power”. Interested in acting and dance from a young age, Sharif attended The Brit School for Performing Arts and Technology for two years where she studied theatre. After leaving she decided she did not want to attend drama school, but instead wanted to study what happened behind the camera. She attended University of Westminster studying Contemporary Media Practice for three years after which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. A few years after graduating, Sharif started attending acting classes at Identity Drama School, now known as Identity School of Acting. It was here where she fell in love with acting again, and started to pursue it seriously.
Career
One of Tahirah Sharif's first roles was in Film 4 short See Me as the lead, Alicia starring alongside Academy Award winner Olivia Colman In 2012, Sharif appeared in each episode of the BBC drama, One Night as Madison as well as appearing in the second series of ITV dramaWhitechapel as Chantal Essian in February 2012. In the same year Sharif played Esther Adams in the stage production of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at The National Theatre and as Dunyazade in the stage production of Arabian Nights at the Tricycle Theatre. Sharif then appeared in her first feature film, The Invisible Woman as Rosa, starring alongside Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Jones. In 2013, Sharif was cast as the teenage daughter of Martin Ashford, Ella in Casualty. Ella was billed as "mischievous, a true troublemaker and determined to cause trouble for Ash ". Sharif's first scenes aired on 4 May 2013 and over a year later, on 17 May 2014, Sharif's final scenes aired. This decision was made by producers after Ella's storyline came to a finish and it saw her arrested after her father decided to hand her into the police. Once she finished on Casualty, Sharif reprised her role as Esther Adams in the stage production of Moon on a Rainbow Shawl for it’s UK national tour. Sharif starred in the final ten episodes of long-running school drama, Waterloo Road, as student Carrie Norton in 2015. Her storylines included the return of her brother, Guy Braxton and her relationship with Lenny Brown. Sharif went onto play Kile in sci fi short film Pulsar in 2015 alongside Jessie Buckley and David Gyasi. The same year, Sharif played Katie in Firebird at Hampstead Theatre. The play was so successful that it got transferred to west end theatreTrafalgar Studios in 2016. In 2017 Sharif was cast as Melissa in A Christmas Prince, Netflix's hugely successful foray into holiday films. There were a further two films, as the first film proved incredibly popular. A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby came out on Netflix in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Sharif will star as Miss Rebecca Jessel in upcoming horror television series The Haunting of Bly Manor due to air on Netflix in October 2020.
