I've always had an involved imagination.

I come from a loving, supportive family, and my mother taught me that there are more valuable ways to achieve beauty than just through your external features. She was focused on compassion and respect, and those are the things that ended up translating to me as beauty. Beautiful people have many advantages, but so do friendly people.... I think beauty is an expression of love.

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.

To be human is to seek perfection, and find joy in never attaining it.

To this day, I love eating steak tacos before going to the red carpets.

We don't get to pick the genes we want. There's room in this world for beauty to be diverse.

Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It keeps us honest.