Born in Senegal in 1981 into a middle-class family, Adama Diop first discovered theatre in high school. When he arrived in France, he began training in the dramatic arts, first at the Conservatoire de Montpellier, then at the Conservatoire National d’Art Dramatique, Paris. He very soon began to meet new people and to experiment, tackling the classical repertoire as well as contemporary writing for the stage.

He has played Molière, William Shakespeare, Marivaux and Bertold Brecht as well as Bernard Koltès, Roberto Bolano and Marie N'Diaye, under the direction of great names such as Frank Castorf, Stéphane Braunschweig, Tiago Rodrigues and Arthur Nauzyciel. He has also appeared on stage several times in new creations, directed by Marion Aubert (Les aventures de Nathalie Nicole Nicole, Saga des habitants du val de Moldavie) and Julien Gosselin (Joueurs, Mao II, Les Noms). 

A multi-faceted actor, capable of playing the lead in Macbeth and the vindictive merchant Yermolai Alexeevich (The Cherry Orchard), Adama Diop says he feels more comfortable with roles and characters far removed from his own experience, with which he can challenge himself. On the contrary, those that draw him to something more personal, in his words, can be more difficult to approach.

Although he is primarily a theatre actor, Adama Diop has also appeared in films and radio dramas, a genre in which he excels thanks to his precise, calm and captivating diction. By his own admission, however, it was his performance as Macbeth that marked a turning point in his career. Playing this tyrant, "far removed from his nature", allowed him to confront one of the most complex plays in the repertoire, but also to reveal himself to the general public in his début at the Théâtre de l'Odéon. 

This summer, Adama Diop made his mark with his interpretation of Yermolai in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, in the Courtyard of the Palais des Papes in Avignon. In an intimate production by Tiago Rodrigues, who has just taken over as director of the Avignon Festival, he acted opposite Isabelle Huppert. An experience with the Portuguese director that he describes above all as organic: "we are not in a spectacular place, but listening, which helps a lot in this choral work. 

In November, he will appear in a creation by Arthur Nauzyciel, Mes Frères, in which he tackles the theme of manufacturing masculinity. A play that evokes men's brutality towards women and nature, in which he plays a character with his own name, Adama, alongside Marie-Sophie Ferdane, Pascal Greggory, Guillaume Costanza and Frédéric Pierrot. A show, in the words of the actor, "about four men who do not know how to express themselves, because they have not been given the right to speak".