GETTING TO KNOW LUPITA NYONG’O

How does an actress with an Oscar, a list of successful projects, endorsements, and an estimated R200 million net worth become even more accomplished? We look at the remarkable rise of Lupita Nyong’o.

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Following her Oscar-winning performance in the 2003 Steve McQueen movie 12 Years a Slave, Lupita received one of the highest honours in acting. This made her the sixth African-American actress to win an Academy Award. In addition, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

After that, she was inundated with even more challenging roles. Her Hollywood debut led to a Tony Award nomination for her performance as a rape victim during the Liberian civil war in the Broadway play Eclipsed. Her other notable performances include the terrifying dual lead roles in Jordan Peele’s Us and her motion-capture role as pirate queen Maz Kanata in the recent Star Wars films.

However, it doesn’t end there. Once again, Lupita contributed to ground-breaking success; this time, she sank her teeth into the role of T’Challa’s lover and fellow Wakandan, Nakia, in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. The film was a watershed point in the history of black culture’s global influence. It was also the first Marvel movie nominated for best picture at the Oscars.



WHAT’S LUPITA BEEN UP TO?
The 39-year-old Kenyan-Mexican is back in theatres with Black Panther’s action-packed sequel, featuring old and new cast members who have all stepped up to safeguard Wakanda in battle. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premiered on 11 November 2022.

THE FINAL RESTING PLACE
Sadly, she and the rest of the ensemble had to deal with the challenging but ultimately therapeutic process of filming while still mourning the loss of Chadwick Boseman, who plays T’Challa AKA The Black Panther, after he passed away in August 2020 from colon cancer. The news of Chadwick’s death came as a shock to everyone. In an interview with Hollywood Life, Lupita revealed that despite knowing he was ill, she didn’t think he was gravely so. “I couldn’t believe it,” Lupita said. “I was paralysed. The impact was immense.”

She still recalls times she was unhappy with Chadwick when he would say no to her, such as when she asked him to accompany her and Danai Gurira to South Africa to promote Black Panther. She, at the time, thought it would be remarkable if he, as an African American, would visit the country. “I thought it was a powerful symbol, but he refused to leave,” Lupita explains in an interview with Hola! magazine. “Now I know he was fighting cancer, and his motives were likely medical.” Marvel decided not to recast T’Challa, a decision Lupita strongly supports.

According to the actress, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a final act for T’Challa and a chance for real-life events to inspire the film’s plot. “I’m sure there are valid arguments for wanting him replaced, but I can’t disagree with that since I don’t have the mental clarity to do so. I don’t. I’m obviously biased,” she told People magazine.

In 2021, when Lupita first opened up about continuing to work on the movie without Chadwick, she said the ensemble was committed to continuing his legacy in the film. She later reflected that working on the movie had been extremely therapeutic and gave her renewed optimism for its eventual success.

NOT READY FOR SUCCESS
Lupita once revealed that she wasn’t ready for the success she gained so quickly. During her time as a student at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, where she obtained her Master’s in acting, she and her fellow students were prepared for failure and other challenges actors face along the way, but not the success that came so fast and dramatically. “The body doesn’t differentiate between extreme failure and extreme achievement,” she told People magazine. So she constantly had to work hard to calm her fears. “I’m proud of how I weathered that particular storm.”



SELECTING PROJECTS
As a result, Lupita is very selective about the type of roles she takes on and isn’t afraid to step down when the part doesn’t align with her values. This was evident when she decided to leave Lady in the Lake, a planned Apple TV+ series starring Natalie Portman.

Before that, in 2020, she exited The Woman King, about the fictitious Dora Milaje female army in Black Panther, in which Viola Davis stars. She later said that she left the film because she struggled with the Agojie tribe’s tradition of brutality that she learned about following her involvement in a documentary about them.

She has, though, revealed her eagerness to work on smaller projects. “They’re more challenging to initiate and maintain. But, unfortunately, they get pushed aside by more popular films. Because of the epidemic and the industry’s financial woes, it has become even more difficult to produce those films,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

One such project that’s close to her heart is her children’s book, Sulwe. In the 2019 tale, the protagonist is Sulwe, a girl who is described as having “skin the colour of midnight”, and is much darker than the rest of her family. The book was a big success, selling thousands of copies and earning an NAACP Image Award. Netflix also recently announced that an animated movie musical based on Sulwe has been green-lighted.

BLACK GIRL MAGIC
Beauty and breaking barriers as a woman of colour have been central to Lupita’s public profile. However, back in 2014, she found it jarring to represent her race when she made history as the first black actress to sign a deal with Lancôme, and was also named People magazine’s Most Beautiful.

Much of her success and freedom of expression may be traced back to her aunt Amondi Buyu, a Kenyan stage actress. Although her parents were progressive thinkers, Lupita says she grew up in a traditional environment in Nairobi. “My schooling was very conservative, but my aunt was wild. She was known for her one-of-a-kind hairdos. She allowed me the freedom to discover my femininity at my own pace. She encouraged me to take risks in life,” she told Hollywood Life.

Her father Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o’s public profile (he is Kenya’s Kisumu County Governor) also influenced her and proved invaluable later in her career. As a result, she’s known for being fiercely private and not much is known about her love life.

Lupita usually brings close relatives to red-carpet events because she wants her work to speak louder than her love life. Her mother Dorothy is the Managing Director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and the owner of a communications firm. In 1980 her parents moved to Mexico City, where her father had a visiting professorship at El Colegio de México. Her family eventually relocated to Kenya when she was a toddler. She later attended college in the United States, graduating from Hampshire College with a degree in film and theatre studies. Then there was her Master’s Degree at Yale.

Words by Koketso Mashika