Lupita Nyong'o
Lupita Nyong'o
Lupita Amondi Nyong'o; born March 1, 1983) is a Mexi-Kenyan actress and filmmaker. She was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents and raised in Kenya. She attended college in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree in film and theater studies from Hampshire College...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth1 March 1983
CityMexico City, Mexico
CountryMexico
actors reason new-things
I always love to learn new things. That's the reason I like being an actor.
supportive wish actors
My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.
actors kind speak
I can speak of actors that I love. I love Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, her tenacity. I love Charlize Theron. She's so surprising and so exhilarating, the kinds of projects she takes on. Marion Cotillard as well.
dream actors wanted
Even in my dreams of being an actor, my dream was not in the celebrity. My dream was in the work that I wanted to do.
starting-over actors experts
As actors, you become an expert at starting over.
successful college actors
When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.
extremely hold joyous knew necessary needed recognized
The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story.
among biggest fact individual learn learned lessons special therefore totally
I learned at Yale, one of the biggest lessons was to learn how special I am and therefore how totally unspecial I am. I was special among everyone else who was special. The fact that we're all so individual and that's what makes us special.
cupboard
I loved make-believe. I was the child in the cupboard playing with my Barbies.
life moved
I had moved back to Kenya after undergrad, and I went through this crisis of, 'What is my life going to be about?'
acting decided drama life looking love school
I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.
I want to be uncomfortable - acting is uncomfortable.
african belong carry experience happened shame swept
Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.
believe magical
There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.