the backstory.
Naïma was born in France to Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo and composer Jean Hébrail. Through the years of moving back and forth between France and America, her passion for acting remained constant. Now based between Paris and Los Angeles, she is thriving in her pursuit of careers in acting, writing, and producing.
She received a BA in Theatre Studies from Yale University. There, her roles ranged from student written plays (Eat, Sleep, Drink, Die; Angels), musicals (Spring Awakening), and contemporary plays (Circle Mirror Transformation), to Shakespeare (The Tempest; Antony and Cleopatra). Outside of Yale she appeared in Dracula and Poof! by Lynn Nottage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her thesis, Pixel Souls,was the recipient of the Berkeley College Arts Prize.
In Chicago, Naïma worked with Dog & Pony Theatre Company, The Hypocrites, Pegasus Theatre Company, Lifeline Theatre, Teatro Vista, and Victory Gardens. Her favorite role was as Abigail Williams in The Crucible with Steppenwolf for Young Adults directed by Jonathan Berry.
Since moving to LA she has performed at Thymele Arts in the Pussygabber Plays, read in two "Square Circle" series which took place at Murmurs LA and the MOCA Geffen; she played Iseult in Pia Wilson's Iseult & Tristan
both with IAMA Theatre Co in LA and LaMama Experimental Theatre Co. in NY. She even did a live virtual play, Fort Huachuca, with SheArts LA during the pandemic lockdown. Naïma also does voiceover work–her credits include the Illinois Lottery, and McDonald's.
In 2024, Naïma was featured in two movies - Dogman durected by Luc Besson, starring Caleb Landry-Jones and Au Fil des Saisons, directed by Hannah Ladoul & Marco Lavia, starring Catherine Deneuve, Andrea Riseborogh, and Morgan Saylor, executive produced by Martin Scorcese.
On television, Naïma has recurred as a Paramedic on Chicago Med and PD, throughout 7 combined seasons. She also recurred in seasons 4 and 5 of Tyler Perry’s All The Queen’s Men, #1 show in BET+.
In 2022, Yemandja, a musical play that Naïma wrote the book and lyrics for premiered in the US and in Europe. It premiered at MassMoca and was performed on stages across the country, including at the Kennedy Center in DC, and the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. The show had its European premiere at the Holland Festival in June 2022.
Naïma also developped & co-produced Jeanne, a short art-film about Jeanne Duval, Charles Baudelaire’s long-forgotten mixed-race muse. The short film a short film project on Jeanne Duval which at Lincoln Center in 2024 with the African Film Festival. Produced by Iman Perez at Buffalo Films, directed by Antoine Paley, and co-starring Paul Spéra, Naïma wrote the script and played the titular character, Jeanne. The short film premiered at Lincoln Center in 2024 with the African Film Festival, and subsequently screened in India, France, San Francisco and BAM in NY. In 2025, Jeanne also won Best Experimental shot at the Paris International Film Festival and screened in the Paris Noir Échos series for the Centre Pompidou.
Naïma since then has produced two other short films: Soft Animal, directed by Shizue Roche Adachi, a moving film about the challenges and joys of embodied womanhood; Anger, directed by Naïma, is the first short in an experimental series, Cardinal Emotions, that explores core human emotions.
Currently, Naïma is developing two film/TV projects, producing a feature, and is currently in post-production for her first feature as a producer, The Benin Project (working title).
She has trained all over the world, at the Cours Florent in Paris, at RADA in London; she's worked with famed acting teachers Larry Moss and Sharon Chatten among others. When she is not acting, auditioning, she loves to cook and does lots of yoga!
Naïma is managed by Margrit Polak Management & Elysian Heights and represented by Time Art in France.