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.

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.

It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's.

Human beings have an instinct for freedom.

I loved duping my parents; I liked manipulating them. It was a way for me to stand out. It was fun.

Every time I overcome an obstacle, it feels like success. Sometimes the biggest ones are in our head - the saboteurs that tell us we can't.

I feel privileged that people are looking up to me and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence.