GOODING
Celia
Rose

• 1. Acting career

Celia Rose Gooding is an American actor and singer. They made their Broadway debut and rose to prominence for the role of Mary Frances "Frankie" Healy in the rock musical Jagged Little Pill for which they won a 2021 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and were nominated for a 2020 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, becoming one of the youngest nominees in the category at age 20. Their mother is LaChanze, an American actress, singer, and dancer. Gooding plays the role of Nyota Uhura in the Paramount+ original series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–present).

Acting career

Gooding first wanted to become an actor when they watched their mother win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for The Color Purple in 2006 on TV. However, they only started participating in musical theatre productions in ninth grade. Throughout their high school experience, Gooding played various roles such as Carmen in the Rosetta LeNoire Musical Theatre Academy's production of Fame.

In 2017, at age 17, Gooding was cast in the first 29-hour reading of Jagged Little Pill, an original musical written by Diablo Cody based on the music of Grammy Award-winning artist Alanis Morissette, that included stars such as Idina Menzel. They originated one of the lead roles of the show, Frankie Healy: a 17-year-old Black, bisexual activist who was adopted into an affluent white family in a suburb in Connecticut. They participated in the 2018 lab and later the world premiere of the show at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in May 2018.

Gooding reprised their role as Frankie when the show transferred to Broadway in November 2019 at the Broadhurst Theatre. They received accolades including Broadway World's Debut of the Month a Clives Barnes Award nomination, and Broadway.com's Debut of the Year. They were also honored as one of BET's Future 40. They also performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest, and Good Morning America.

In 2019, Gooding and their mother, LaChanze, made history by becoming the first mother and daughter ever to perform on Broadway at the same time, with LaChanze starring in A Christmas Carol and Gooding starring in Jagged Little Pill.

Gooding received accolades for their performance in Jagged Little Pill, which closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They received the award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical at the inaugural Antonyo Awards and were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. They also participated in the 2020 Playbill Pride Spectacular along with co-star Lauren Patten.

They appear in the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as Nyota Uhura.

On September 24, 2021, Gooding announced that they would not be returning to Jagged Little Pill due to alleged transphobic and abusive treatment of the show's non-binary cast members.