She is a graduate of Cambridge University.

Trained at RADA

Has a daughter, Aoife, from a relationship with Irish film editor Eoin Martin. She is no longer with him.

She is of half Nigerian/half European-Jewish heritage, but is a born and raised Brit.

Invited to join AMPAS in 2005.

In 2005, Okenedo became the first black actress since Angela Bassett in 1994 to receive an NAACP Image Award nomination for the same role in which she was nominated for an Oscar. Previous Oscar nominees Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Halle Berry and Queen Latifah were not nominated by the NAACP for the same roles.