Born:
March 01, 1983
in
Mexico City
Best Known For:
12 Years a Slave and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Early-life:
Lupita Amondi Nyong'o was born in Mexico City on March 1, 1983 to Kenyan parents Dorothy and Peter. She has dual Kenyan and Mexican citizenship. She moved with her family to their native Kenya shortly after she was born. Lupita acted in school plays and made her professional debut at the age of 14 as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in a production by the Nairobi-based repertory company Phoenix Players. She went on to gain an IB Diploma in 2001 at St Mary's School in Nairobi and a degree in film and theatre studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Career:
In 2008, Nyong'o appeared in the Kenyan TV series Shuga. A year later, she wrote, directed and produced the documentary In My Genes. While studying a master's degree in acting at the Yale School of Drama, she appeared in a number of stage productions, including Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. After graduating from Yale, she was cast as Patsey in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (2013), a role that earned her an Academy Award. Since then, she has starred in Non-Stop (2014), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Queen of Katwe (2016). She voiced the character Raksha in The Jungle Book (2016).
Quote:
"There's always a sense of newness with acting, because you come to every role fresh."
Trivia:
Nyong'o is fluent in Luo, English, Swahili and Spanish. While at Yale, she won the Herschel Williams Prize.