Following Their Heart

CMU alum, actor and startup founder Arsema Thomas makes an impact on-screen and off

Starring as young Lady Agatha Danbury as part of Netflix’s “Bridgerton” franchise, Carnegie Mellon University alum Arsema Thomas is — finally — living their dream.

A dream that they say felt impossibly out of reach during their time as a Mellon College of Science student pursuing their bachelor’s degree in biological sciences with the goal of a future in medicine.

“I tried to take an acting for non-majors class,” says Arsema, who graduated from CMU in 2016 and also holds a master’s degree in public health from Yale University.

“But there was just something about being so close to something you love and want but not having it. It was actually so much more painful, so I just shut it out.”

Even with friends enrolled in various College of Fine Arts programs, they never attended a play, musical or any theater production during their time on campus.

So, dearest readers, how did Arsema end up with their breakout role on “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” which held a spot on the streaming service’s Top 10 Most-Watched Shows ranking with upward of 80.3 million views when it debuted in 2023?

They followed their heart — into acting and living their values of equity and anti-racism in all that they do.

“A Very Big Crash Course on Life”

Arsema grew up “everywhere.”

Their dad is Nigerian, and their mom is Ethiopian. Both are diplomats, leading to the bulk of Arsema’s formative years being spent in Uganda, Kenya, Benin, and Togo. They instilled in them an interest in global and African affairs and a drive to positively impact the continent.

As a teenager, they were attending a boarding school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when their father brought up Carnegie Mellon.

“My dad would tell me, ‘The top 25 schools in the world, those are the only places you can go,’” they say. “I remember CMU being on that list.”

That global notoriety coupled with an article about Conflict Kitchen, a now-shuttered School of Art project that featured rotating menus from cultures less heard and less known in the U.S., set them on a Tartan path.

“CMU just felt like the place I needed to be,” Arsema says. “It was a place that was having those transparent discussions. It had the type of revolutionary, passionate energy that I have, and I wanted to be in a space that had that as well.”

When they arrived at CMU, they planned to use their studies to improve health care across African nations and advise Western countries on how to effectively assist residents.

“When I think about what I actually went to school for, what's on my degree and the education that I came out of it with, I honestly feel I got a very big crash course on life,” Arsema says.

“The Confidence to Know That I Can Try”

In the classroom, CMU’s cross-disciplinary nature led them to explore other courses beyond their medicine-focused track.

“CMU just kind of felt like this massive playground where I was able to kind of dip my finger into whatever colors I wanted and see what came out,” Arsema says. A bioethics course inspired their graduate studies, and other courses were “the beginning stages of an awakening” for them, like an African history course in Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

“I was an Ethiopian being taught African history by an Eritrean,” Arsema says. “I was learning in-depth parts of a history where I’d only learned one side, and that changed a lot of things for me. Professor Aferworki Paolos was there; he was one of my favorites.”

Outside of the classroom, they traveled to Haiti as part of CMU in Haiti and served as Habitat for Humanity’s vice president, chairperson for community service in the Minority Association of Pre-Health Students (MAPS) and vice president of site leader operation for 1000plus, a university-wide day of service for the Pittsburgh community.

“I learned what freedom was and have the confidence to know that I can try whatever I want as I go out into the world,” Arsema says. “It's one of the biggest things that I could be given.”

“It’s the reason why I didn't feel scared going into acting even though I had been in the public health field. I'd done the same thing at CMU, and no one said, ‘No.’ No one said, ‘That's crazy.’ It gave me a lot of my confidence that I have today.”

“The Need to Run Away and Reinvent Myself”

Arsema soon found themselves at Yale University.

During their graduate studies, they founded the now-shuttered Mosaic, an online networking tool for refugees to connect their skill sets with needs in their area, and Enki, an SMS-based app that helps women in rural Kenya to monitor their menstrual cycles and subscribe to a discreet delivery of female condoms to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS. The company is currently working through the FDA and patent processes to create their own condoms.

“I feel a lot of pressure to do this work while knowing that it will never be done, and I may not see the effects of what I try to accomplish,” Arsema says. “The foundation of everything I do is figuring out how to make unfair things more fair and create stability for more people.”

Along their social equity-focused entrepreneurial journey, they also decided to stop “pushing down” their desire to act. They started auditioning for student films, small roles in local theater, and TV specials. After graduation, they completed Yale’s Summer Drama Program before moving to Paris to enroll at Cours Florent and later the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

“There was always this fear of, ‘What would people think?’” they say. “I’m a science major, and here I am trying to act, how dare I? I felt the need to run away and reinvent myself in order to feel like I had a right to do to do this thing.”

“What a Backbone Looks Like”

After completing their drama training in Europe and moving to South Africa to sign with an agent, Arsema heard about Bridgerton’s second season, an English Regency-era romantic drama adapted from Julia Quinn’s books.

Shonda Rhimes, a noted Hollywood producer and screenwriter known for creating “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder,” was the show’s executive producer.

Arsema told their agents she wanted in. They told her the show was already filming. A week later, their agents called with information about a Rhimes-created limited series and the role of Lady Danbury.

A prequel to the blockbuster Netflix series, “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” tells a late-1700s royal love story — and the beginnings of a 50-year friendship between the title character and a lady of society, her new confidante and adviser.

Many of the show’s plot points focus on gender and race, and how characters must face them and conquer them, in whatever way their station in life allows.

“Lady Danbury is to me what a backbone looks like,” says Arsema. “She does not falter to anyone and has such a strong sense of self. She’s two steps ahead of everyone because of the way the world worked, and still works, for women.”

To form the character, they called their family.

“I've been quite privileged,” Arsema says. “So I've never had to experience the struggles Agatha did, which is why I had to definitely call my mom and my aunt for their experiences. They’re exactly like her.”

Working with Rhimes was everything Arsema hoped it would be.

“There are just not a lot of Black women showrunners out there,” Arsema says. “I knew that if I wanted to be on a TV show, Shonda is the person who I would trust to write the words for me.”

Arsema now is in the midst of other projects and dreaming about what the future holds, perhaps an animated role.

“I think being a racialized person, voice acting allows me the ability to release myself from the physical identities that I carry,” they say. “I also just love having different characters in my mind and not being beholden to CGI, costumes and makeup. It can just be something that is drawn.”