Biography
You may have recognized Quartay as the Hero Woman lead actress from the Apple Watch Series 6 Commercial, Hello Sunshine, where she performed all of the stunts, and also voiced the commercial's narration.
Quartay DeNaya is from Minneapolis, Minnesota where she was raised on the importance of faith and hard work. After she graduated with academic honors from Osseo Senior High School, she was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (Hollywood).
Armed with her Associates degree and the runner-up nod for "Most Improved" in her class, she became a member of the Academy's Theatre Company in 2015. Later that year, beginning her reputation of being coined the "One Take Wonder" she booked the lead role in the short film Roots in Concrete (2015) a film inspired by the death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, who was shot and killed right before the 1992 LA riots. Roots in Concrete received numerous film-festival nominations. The film is directed by Princess Grace HBO Film Award winner Allison A. Waite. A few years later, DeNaya was cast as Latasha Harlins in the opening sequence of the feature film Kings (2017), starring Halle Berry and Daniel Craig and directed by French-Turkish filmmaker Deniz Gamze Ergüven.
In 2016, she was cast as Meryl in the feature film A Cowgirl's Story. DeNaya shared the screen with young Hollywood talents like Bailee Madison and Chloe Lukasiak in this heartwarming family film. Her versatility became more apparent when she booked a short film called Nia's Shadow, where she played the title role, a young superhero named Nia Knight, directed by The Turner Brothers of Dreadhead Films.
In addition to her film work, Quartay also enjoys performing on stage. She was cast as a Beauxbaton Gymnast in the Tri-Wiz Show at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Universal Studios Hollywood, along with many gigs as a professional dancer. With a love of theatre from her training at AADA, she also starred as the role of Camae in a theatrical production of The Mountaintop, and Vivian in Vivian's Music 1969. Both productions produced in Sedona, Arizona by Camilla Ross of Emerson Theatre Collaborative.
When she's not acting, she is training in American Kenpo Karate. She proudly holds the rank of Shodan, 1st degree black belt. She has also expanded her martial arts disciplines to include growing her performance proficiency in wielding a variety of weapons (Katana, Butterfly Knife, Bo Staff and many others) and training powerful kicks. She has gained the attention of companies like Buzzfeed, Century Martial Arts, Venum and more due to her fast, growing online social media presence. She even made the top 10 of Black Action Stars' list of performers with the potential to be the next top black action star.
In addition to the above, she also models professionally for Too Faced Cosmetics. Her other hobbies include spending time honing her skills as an intermediate violinist, coaching the sport of Gymnastics, Photography and learning new languages for fun.
DeNaya is represented by Streitfeld Management and The DriveN Agency, and is based in Los Angeles, California.
