Growing up in Kenya, slum life was not far away. I had family that lived in slums, so I visited them often, and so I've seen and interacted with abject poverty. But I also know that because of that, poverty is not the definition of the people that live there.
Lupita Nyong'oI realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.
Lupita Nyong'oI 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.
Lupita Nyong'oWhat I will say is that what I have learned for myself is that I donโt have to be anybody else; and that myself is good enough; and that when I am being true to that self, then I can avail myself to extraordinary thingsYou have to allow for the impossible to be possible.
Lupita Nyong'oI don't think I will ever be able to really articulate how bizarre it was to hear my name at the Academy Awards. I'd watched in my pajamas the year before! I felt numb - dazed and confused. I remember feeling light - weightless. More like limbo than cloud nine. At first I was like, This is my statue; nobody gets to touch it. And by midnight I was like, Please, someone, take this statue; it's too heavy! So I gave it to my brother, and he went off with it.
Lupita Nyong'o