DeObia Oparei
PROVISIONAL evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07075 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5816.
DeObia Oparei, born 7 December 1971 in Hackney, London, to parents of Nigerian ancestry, is a British actor and playwright. Oparei began in British theatre, working with companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Youth Theatre, and made a film debut in Alien 3 before playing Le Chocolat in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!. As a playwright, Oparei's first play opened at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2002 to critical acclaim and later toured to Sydney. Screen audiences know Oparei best for a run of large-scale productions: the Gunner in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011); Areo Hotah, captain of Prince Doran Martell's guard, in the fifth season of HBO's Game of Thrones (2015); Rongo in Tim Burton's Dumbo (2019); Mr. Effiong in Sex Education; and Boastful Loki in Marvel's Loki (2021), a role named in playful reference to an earlier character called Loki Hayes in Santa Clarita Diet. Rotten Tomatoes' filmography also credits roles in Independence Day: Resurgence, Jumanji: The Next Level, Wrath of Man and The Gray Man, a body of work built on physical presence and theatrical training.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
DeObia Oparei, born 7 December 1971 in Hackney, London, to parents of Nigerian ancestry, is a British actor and playwright. Oparei began in British theatre, working with companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Youth Theatre, and made a film debut in Alien 3 before playing Le Chocolat in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!. As a playwright, Oparei's first play opened at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2002 to critical acclaim and later toured to Sydney.
The record
- Also known as: Deobia Oparei
Notes
Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 8; 40-record packet). Gate A (2026-10-16): no DeObia Oparei entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5816 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 720 (Movie Actors list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — British actor of Nigerian ancestry — diaspora scope. Vital status: LIVING — credited in The Gray Man (2022) and Wrath of Man (2021); no death record appears in any consulted source; vital status carried at the Provisional tier with this record. FLOOR FLAG: no authoritative-class source (Britannica / GRAMMY.com / national museum or institution / university / official body) profile of this subject was found in this pass; the record rests on Wikipedia plus the Rotten Tomatoes and TV Guide trade databases, so it is staged Provisional under CTL-GOV-006 rather than padded. CONFLICTS CARRIED: one aggregator (Digit Binge) lists a birth date of 31 December 1970 against 7 December 1971 in Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes and Moviefone; the 1971 date governs provisionally and the variant is carried unresolved. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Filmography anchors: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Game of Thrones season 5 (2015), Dumbo (2019), Loki (2021) — Wikipedia / Rotten Tomatoes, accessed 2026-10-16. No chart statistics are carried for this record. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5816-deobia-oparei.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )
Sources
- Wikipedia, "DeObia Oparei" — born 7 December 1971, Hackney, London, to parents of Nigerian ancestry; Royal Shakespeare Company and National Youth Theatre beginnings; film debut in Alien 3; Le Chocolat in Moulin Rouge!; first play at the Royal Court Theatre 2002; Areo Hotah in Game of Thrones season 5 (2015); Boastful Loki in Loki (2021) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeObia_Oparei (build store)
- Rotten Tomatoes, "DeObia Oparei" — birthday 7 December 1971, birthplace London; filmography including Dumbo (2019, Rongo), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Wrath of Man (2021) — https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/dhobi_oparei (build store)
- TV Guide, "DeObia Oparei Biography" — born in Hackney, London; first play debuted 2002 at London's Royal Court Theatre; Hollywood NAACP Award nomination (2008) for the stage production Gilgamesh — https://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/deobia-oparei/bio/3030030629/ (build store)
More person records
Browse the full directory: all entity records
Record CTL-E-5816 · Combined Graph record U-07075 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph
Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
Cite this record
Chicago: CultureTechLens. “DeObia Oparei (CTL-E-5816).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5816/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). DeObia Oparei (CTL-E-5816) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5816/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “DeObia Oparei (CTL-E-5816).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5816/
Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.
From the Archive
The archive in pictures
The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.



Trust & evidence
Evidence before authority. CultureTechLens publishes its methods, its limits, and its corrections alongside its findings. Claims carry grades — VERIFIED, SUPPORTED, PROVISIONAL, DISPUTED, UNRESOLVED — and unknowns are never reported as zero.
Every claim graded. Every source named. Every correction public — see the corrections log.