Lupita Nyong’o was stereotyped into slave roles after winning an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave
Despite her Oscar win, Lupita Nyong’o initially received offers only for stereotypical slave roles. This led him to consciously choose diverse projects and become “a joyful warrior to change the paradigms of what it means to be African”.
Winning an Oscar for his supporting role in the film 12 years a Slave This initially resulted in actor Lupita Nyong’o only receiving offers for similar slave roles in the following months. She made her feature film debut as Patsy in the drama film directed by Steve McQueen.
Nyong’o said that receiving an Academy Award early in her career deeply shaped its trajectory. The actor said, “Winning the Academy Award happened very early in my career. It was my first film. So, it really set the pace for everything I’ve done.”
The 42-year-old revealed the surprise result of the win: “What’s very interesting is that after winning an Academy Award, you’d think like, ‘Oh, I’m going to get lead roles here and there.’ But it’s ‘Oh, Lupita.’ We would like you to do another film in which you are a slave but this time you are on a slave ship. “(I was getting) such offers in the months after I won the Academy Award.”
Nyong’o described the period following her Oscar win as “a very tender time”. She elaborated on the pressure and public scrutiny she faced: “There is an expectation on you and your career. There were thoughts about is this the beginning or the end of this African woman’s career? I had to deafen myself in front of all those religious leaders because at the end of the day I’m not a theory. I’m a real person.”
The ‘Black Panther’ (2018) actor described his mission to challenge expectations, insisting: “I love being a joyful warrior to change the paradigms of what it means to be African. If it means I do one less job a year to make sure I’m not perpetuating these stereotypes that people expect from my content then let me do that.”
Nyong’o successfully transitions from her Oscar-winning role in the film 12 years a Slave For major blockbuster franchises. It started with his motion-capture performance as Maz Kanata Star Wars: The Force AwakensHer path into larger-scale productions continued with the role of Nakia in Marvel black pantherThe actress has also received praise for her work in other notable films including queen of katwe, Weand prequel A Quiet Place: Day One,
During the 2024 episode of what now? with trevor noah In the podcast, the actress revealed that she was indirectly forced to abandon her Kenyan accent in order to succeed as an actress and gain diverse roles in Hollywood. She admitted that making this decision “felt like a betrayal”.
Nyong’o explained (via Entertainment Weekly) that the first time she allowed herself to change or change her accent was when she went to drama school. She explained her reasoning: “I went to drama school because I didn’t want to just be a spontaneous actor. I wanted to understand my instrument. I wanted to know what I was good at, what I wasn’t good at, and work on the things I wasn’t good at. And one of the things I wasn’t good at was pronunciation.”
The actress further described the intense emotional difficulty of changing her speech for professional reasons: “The process of deciding, ‘Okay, I’m going to start working on my American accent and I’m not going to allow myself to sound Kenyan,’ so that I could monitor and really try to understand my mouth in a technical way to make these new sounds. Making those new sounds in a context that wasn’t in the classroom felt like a betrayal. You know, I felt like myself. I couldn’t feel it and I cried myself to sleep for many nights.”
Nyong’o will next be seen in Christopher Nolan’s film odyssey,