Age: 27
female
China Anne McClain (born August 25, 1998) is an American actress and singer. McClain's career began when she was seven years old, portraying Alexis in the film The Gospel (2005), and then China James in Daddy's Little Girls (2007). She then received recognition for starring as Jazmine Payne in the television series Tyler Perry's House of Payne (2007–2012; 2020–present) and as Charlotte McKenzie in the film Grown Ups (2010); and became internationally known for starring as Chyna Parks in the Disney Channel television series A.N.T. Farm (2011–2014), and as Uma in the Disney Channel films Descendants 2 (2017) and Descendants 3 (2019). In 2018, McClain began starring in The CW superhero series Black Lightning (2018–2021) as Jennifer Pierce / Lightning. She also reprised her character Jazmine Payne on OWN's revival of The Paynes (2018). McClain began her musical career in 2005 as a member of the sister girl group the 3mcclaingirls with her sisters Sierra and Lauryn. Her first professional single was "Your Biggest Fan" with Nick Jonas on the soundtrack album Jonas L.A. (2010). In 2011, McClain signed with Hollywood Records both as a solo artist and with her sister girl group, known as the McClain Sisters. Her debut single as a solo artist was "Dynamite" which peaked at no. 2 on the US Kid Digital Songs, and her second single, "Calling All the Monsters", peaked at no. 1 on the same chart and earned 25,000 downloads within its first week of release. The A.N.T. Farm soundtrack album spent five weeks on the Billboard Kids chart in 2011 and sold 14,000 copies in its first week of release. Billboard also named her the sixth best-selling artist for digital kids' songs in 2012. In 2017, her single "What's My Name" from Descendants 2 peaked on several Billboard charts, and was certified gold, with 500,000 units sold, on November 10, 2017. In June 2020 her sister girl group changed their name to Thriii.
Set in the magnificent, politically turbulent court of Suleiman the Magnificent — arguably the apex of Ottoman civilization — Hilal Altında follows two protagonists across interwoven storylines that eventually converge. Kerem Dönmez, 30, a Black man raised by the Dönmez family (Ottoman court advisors for four generations), serves as one of Suleiman's most trusted diplomatic strategists — the man who drafts the letters that move empires. He is entirely Ottoman in every dimension: his scholarship, his poetry, his political philosophy, his identity. When Kerem is given in arranged marriage to Elif Aslan, the daughter of a Janissary commander, he encounters a woman of formidable intelligence and completely different experience — raised in the military household of the Ottoman elite, practical where he is philosophical, strategic where he is theoretical. Season one is their marriage finding its language. Season two is them operating together in the most complex political environment of their era: Suleiman's court, where the stakes of every interaction are civilizational. A second storyline follows Nil Dönmez, 23, Kerem's adoptive sister — also Black, also raised fully Turkish — whose own arranged marriage to a Venetian merchant navigating trade relations with the Ottomans creates a cross-cultural love story that the show handles with the complexity it deserves.
