Emmanuel Kabongo was born in The Democratic Republic of Congo and relocated to South Africa with his family before moving to Toronto in 1998. The oldest of five, Emmanuel turned down a basketball scholarship to pursue an acting career. After making his television debut in 2010 on the television series 'Breakout' for the National Geographic/Discovery Channel, Emmanuel continued to make guest appearances on various TV series such as CW's 'Nikita', HBO's 'Call Me Fitz', CBC's 'Murdoch Mysteries', Netflix's 'Hemlock Grove', ABC's 'Rookie Blue' and 'Quantico'.Kabongo made his film debut in 2013 while playing a lead character in the critically acclaimed feature 'The Animal Project' (Ingrid Veninger, director; TIFF 2013 Official Selection). The year following, in 2014, Emmanuel had a supporting role in the feature film 'Pompei" (Paul W.S Anderson; director) and in 2016 he was a supporting actor in the feature film 'Antibirth' (Sundance 2016 Official Selection).Emmanuel produced and starred in the YouTube sensational, award winning web-series, 'Teenagers'. In 2015, Kabongo was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award (Best Performance) for his portrayal of the character "T" in the second season of 'Teenagers'. Emmanuel was a recipient of the BravoFactual (2015) grant award to produce his short film 'A Man's Story', which premiered at the 2016 ReelWorld Film Festival and won the Impact Award for best short film of the festival. Kabongo is an alumni of the Actors Conservatory Program at the Canadian Film Centre (2014).Kabongo is fluent in French and has over 10 years of experience working with school aged children. Emmanuel enjoys continuing to indulge his first loves: soccer and basketball.