Lupita Amondi Nyong’o
She is a Kenyan-Mexican actress. The daughter of Kenyan politician Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, she was born in Mexico City, where her father was teaching, and was raised in Kenya from the age of one.
1983
Mexico city, Mexico
Kenyan-Mexican
In 2014, the American National Trust for Historic Preservation recruited Nyong’o in an effort to oppose development, including a new minor league baseball stadium, in the Shockoe Bottom area of Richmond, Virginia. The historic neighbourhood, one of Richmond’s oldest, was the site of major slave trading before the American Civil War.
In June 2015 Nyong’o returned to Kenya and announced that she would advocate globally for elephants with the international conservation organisation WildAid, as well as promote women’s issues, acting and the arts in Kenya. WildAid announced Nyong’o as their Global Elephant Ambassador.
Nyong’o is involved with the organisation Mother Health International, which aims to provide relief to women and children in Uganda by creating locally engaged birthing centres. She said she had never thought much about birthing practices until her sister introduced her to MHI executive director Rachel Zaslow. Nyong’o felt bringing attention to such important but overlooked issues is a mandate for her as an artist. Variety honoured her for her work in 2016.
In April 2016 Nyong’o launched an anti-poaching “hearts and minds” campaign with her organisation WildAid in advance of Kenya Wildlife Service’s historic ivory burn that occurred on 30 April 2016. The Kenyan government burned 105 tonnes of ivory and 1.35 tonnes of rhino horn in a demonstration of their zero tolerance approach to poachers and smugglers who were threatening the survival of elephants and rhinoceros in the wild.
In October 2017in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal and the Me Too movemenNyong’o wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. This divulged that Weinstein had sexually harassed her on two separate occasions in 2011, when she was a student at Yale. Nyong’o’s op-ed was part of a collection of stories by The New York Times and The New Yorker that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Nyong’o made her writing debut with a book titled Sulwe (2019), which is published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Sulwe (Luo for `star’) is the story of a fiveyearold Kenyan girlwho has the darkest complexion in her family, for which Nyong’o drew on her own childhood experiences. The book became a numberone New York Times Best-Seller. Sulwe was selected for the 2020 Illustrator Honour at the Coretta Scott King Awards, and won for Outstanding Literary Work – Children at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards.
In September 2019, Nyong’o became an Ambassador for Michael Kors’ Watch Hunger Stop campaign. In October 2019 Nyong’o and her mother were honoured at The Harlem School of the Arts’ Mask Ball with a Visionary Lineage Award. In November 2019 she was honoured at WildAid, receiving the Champion of the Year award.
In 2020, The Africa Centre announced Nyong’o as a member of its board of trustees.
The family returned to their native Kenya when Nyong’o was less than one year old, after her father was appointed as a professor at the University of Nairobi. She grew up primarily in Nairobi, in an artistic family, and describes her upbringing as middle class, suburban. Family get-togethers often included performances by the children, and trips to see plays. She attended Rusinga International School in Kenya and acted in school plays.
At age 14, Nyong’o made her professional acting debut as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in a production by the Nairobi-based repertory company Phoenix Players. While a member of the Phoenix Players, Nyong’o also performed in the plays On The Razzle and There Goes The Bride. Nyong’o credits the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple with inspiring her to pursue a professional acting career.
When she was 16, her parents sent her to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish. During those seven months, Nyong’o lived in Taxco, Guerrero, and took classes at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s Learning Centre for Foreigners. Nyong’o later attended St. Mary’s School in Nairobi, where she received an IB Diploma in 2001 and came second in her class. She went to the United States for college, graduating from Hampshire College with a degree in film and theatre studies.
In 2013 her father was elected to represent Kisumu County in the Kenyan Senate and by 2017, he became Governor. Nyong’o’s mother is the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and her own communications company. Other family members include Tavia Nyong’o, a scholar and professor at New York University; Omondi Nyong’o, a paediatric ophthalmologist in Palo Alto, California, US; Kwame Nyong’o, one of Kenya’s leading animators and leading technology expert; and Isis Nyong’o, a media and technology leader who was named one of Africa’s most powerful young women by Forbes magazine.
Nyong’o began her career working as part of the production crew for several films, including Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener (2005), Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006), and Salvatore Stabile’s Where God Left His Shoes (2007). She cites Ralph Fiennes, the British star of The Constant Gardener, as someone who inspired her to pursue a professional acting career. In 2008, Nyong’o starred in the short film East River, directed by Marc Grey and shot in Brooklyn. She returned to Kenya that same year and appeared in the Kenyan television series Shuga, an MTV Base Africa/UNICEF drama about HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2009, she wrote, directed, and produced the documentary In My Genes, about the discriminatory treatment of Kenya’s albino population. It played at several film festivals and won first prize at the 2008 Five College Film Festival. Nyong’o also directed the music video The Little Things You Do by Wahu, featuring Bobi Wine, which was nominated for the Best Video Award at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009.
Nyong’o enrolled in a master’s degree program in acting at the Yale School of Drama. At Yale, she appeared in many stage productions, including Gertrude Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter’s Tale. While at Yale, she won the Herschel Williams Prize in the 2011–12 academic year for `acting students with outstanding ability.
Immediately after graduating from Yale, Nyong’o landed her breakthrough role when she was cast in Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). The film, which met with widespread critical acclaim, is based on the life of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a freeborn African American man of upstate New York who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in Washington DC in 1841. Nyong’o portrayed Patsey, a slave who works alongside Northup at a Louisiana cotton plantation and her performance garnered rave reviews. Empire reviewer Ian Freer wrote that she “gives one of the most committed big-screen debuts imaginable,” and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called her “a spectacular young actress who imbues Patsey with grit and radiant grace”. She was nominated for several awards for 12 Years a Slave, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, which she won.She also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the sixth black actress to win the award. She is the second African actress to win the award, the first Kenyan actress to win an Oscar, and the first Mexican to win the award. She is also the fifteenth actress to win an Oscar for a film debut performance.
Following a supporting role in the action-thriller Non-Stop (2014), Nyong’o co-starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) as Force-sensitive space pirate Maz Kanata, a CGI character created using motion capture technology. She had wanted to play a role where her appearance was not relevant, and the acting provided a different challenge from her role as Patsey. Scott Mendelson of Forbes described Nyong’o’s role as “the centre of the film’s best sequence,” and Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine called her a “delightful minor character”. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 42nd Saturn Awards and Best Virtual Performance at the 2016 MTV Movie Awards for her role.
In 2015, Nyong’o returned to the stage with a starring role as an unnamed girl in the play Eclipsed, written by Danai Gurira. The play takes place during the chaos of the Second Liberian Civil War, where the captive wives of a rebel officer band together to form a community, until the balance of their lives are upset by the arrival of a new girl (played by Nyong’o). Eclipsed became the Public Theatre’s fastest selling new production in recent history and won Nyong’o an Obie Award for Outstanding Performance. The play premiered on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre the following year. It was the first play to premiere on Broadway with an allBlack and female creative cast and crew. Nyong’o had understudied the play at Yale in 2009 and was terrified to play the character onstage. She turned down film roles in favour of the production. Her performance garnered critical acclaim and Charles Isherwood of The New York Times hailed Nyong’o as “one of the most radiant young actors to be seen on Broadway in recent seasons,” and added that she “shines with a compassion that makes us see beyond the suffering to the indomitable humanity of its characters.” Her performance in Eclipsed earned her a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway Debut Performance and a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In addition, she was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Play at the Outer Critics Circle Award and a Distinguished Performance Award at the Drama League Award.
Parents: Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, Dorothy Nyong’o
Siblings: Esperanza Nyong’o, Peter Nyong’o
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Lupita_Nyong%27o accessed 15/04/2022
https://pagesix.com/2018/01/10/not-even-black-panther-star-lupita-nyongo-could-score-pre-sale-tickets/ accessed 15/04/2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-47608822 accessed 15/04/2022
https://www.allure.com/story/lupita-nyongo-on-natural-hair accessed 15/04/2022
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