Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

It's so much more fun to do the work than to talk about it. I will have to admit that. Everybody gets to decide how they feel, and what to take away by themselves, and that's what you hope for. That people will take away different things and have different experiences from the work we do as actors. So I don't like to prescribe how to feel about the work I do.

Everyone said, ‘Brace yourself, Lupita! Keep a granola bar in that clutch of yours!’ I didn’t really understand what they meant, and it was only once it was past that I realized that my body had been holding on by a thread to get through this very intense experience. Nothing can prepare you for awards season. The red carpet feels like a war zone, except you cannot fly or fight; you just have to stand there and take it.

Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

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.

You fail, and then what? Life goes on. It's only when you risk failure that you discover things.

You have to allow for the impossible to be possible.