Coco Rebecca Edogamhe: A Very Ordinary Girl

The work of Coco Rebecca Edogamhe (born 2001) is unique and relevant case study due to three interdependent factors: her young age and short acting experience, which allow us to observe the construction of professional narratives and practices from scratch; her debut in a leading role without prior acting training, which led her to interpret the set as a school; her identity as an Italian of Afro-descent, which places her at the centre of the debate on diversity and representation. While acknowledging her exceptional profile, she also makes a constant shift towards the notion of 'ordinary', proposing a nuanced and everyday model of celebrity, suitable for both television and digital media. Crucial to all this was the casting process, the debut during the Covid-19 pandemic, and her mirroring in the part of summer in 'Summertime' (Netflix 2020-2022). In this essay, press interviews and an in-depth dialogue between the author and the actress will interact diachronically to capture the main trajectories through which Edogamhe negotiated her public identity and began to build her professional culture.