Lupita Nyong'O Quotes

My father was a professor of political science and also a young politician fighting for democracy in Kenya, and when things got ugly, he went into political exile in Mexico. Then I moved back to Kenya shortly after I turned one, and I grew up in Kenya.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I was raised in Kenya, and I always wanted to be an actor from when I was really, really little, but the first time I thought it was something that I could make a career of was when I watched 'The Color Purple.' I think I was nine, maybe, and I saw people that looked like me - Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My father was a professor of political science and also a young politician fighting for democracy in Kenya, and when things got ugly, he went into political exile in Mexico.

- Lupita Nyong'o

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I give myself homework when I have an audition. I give myself goals, and that's how I check how I'm doing. It can be something simple like 'listen,' or 'find your feet.' And then afterward it's an assessment, so in a way it's not about booking the job or not. It's about what I learned as an actor about that character.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I 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'o

Our business is complicated because intimacy is part and parcel of our profession; as actors, we are paid to do very intimate things in public. That's why someone can have the audacity to invite you to their home or hotel, and you show up.

- Lupita Nyong'o

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Growing up, I had really bad skin. I had a skin disorder. Yes, I did. And my mother went to great lengths to try to find something to remedy it. I remember she took a trip to Madagascar and came back with all these alternative, medicinal herbs and stuff. They didn't smell so good, but I think they worked some magic.

- Lupita Nyong'o

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I grew up in a world where the majority of people were black, so that wasn't the defining quality of anyone. When you're describing someone, you don't start out with 'he's black, he's white.'

- Lupita Nyong'o

It's only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you're not expressing the utmost of your human experience.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'

- Lupita Nyong'o

As actors, you become an expert at starting over.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I never understood who all those people are behind the actors! When you see them on the red carpet on TV, you go, 'Why does that person need such a large entourage?' And then you realize that every single person there has a role to play.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Steve McQueen is a genius. And I think that word is overused, but I think with Steve it's rightly used. He's a genius.

- Lupita Nyong'o

That's such a powerless place for me to think about: what is working against me. I don't think of what I don't have; I think of what I do and use that to get the next thing.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I was part of a growing community of women who were secretly dealing with harassment by Harvey Weinstein. But I also did not know that there was a world in which anybody would care about my experience with him.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I didn't love my hair when I was a child. It was lighter than my skin, which made me not love it so much. I was really kind of envious of girls with thicker, longer, more lush hair.

- Lupita Nyong'o

The first time I cut all my hair off was when I was 19. I just got fed up going to the salon every week. I'd had enough! On a whim, it was off. It's low-maintenance.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I am very emotional about politics in a way that makes it hard for me to articulate things in a rational fashion.

- Lupita Nyong'o

The beauty standards had nothing to do with me in Mexico. It was such a bizarre, dire time for my hair. I was living in a small town where there was not any semblance of an African community. I'd have to take the bus to Mexico City to find a woman who could braid my hair. That was two and a half hours away.

- Lupita Nyong'o

One of the reasons why I went to the Yale School of Drama is because I felt that I was acting off of instinct, but sometimes that is not reliable. When you're not feeling it, what do you do? So, going to grad school was about getting the tools to just use my instrument to the best of my ability.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I learned at Yale, one of the biggest lessons was to learn how special I am and therefore how totally unspecial I am. I was special among everyone else who was special. The fact that we're all so individual and that's what makes us special.

- Lupita Nyong'o

What fame does is there is an illusion of familiarity that is cast into the world. So it's about negotiating with that illusion because, oftentimes, you encounter people who have encountered you, but you haven't encountered them. It's a little weird to find your footing.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I have dabbled in martial arts all my life, since I was 7, maybe - tae kwon do, capoeira, Muay Thai. It's always been an interest because in martial arts there is a mind/body relationship.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I thrive on structure. I find my freedom in structure.

- Lupita Nyong'o

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I grew up in the limelight and being the child of someone famous. So my relationship with fame is not bedazzled.

- Lupita Nyong'o

As human beings, what makes us able to empathize with people is a connection that is not necessarily understood mentally.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I am thrilled beyond words that The Academy has recognized my performance in Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave,' and I am deeply proud to be in the company of my fellow nominees.

- Lupita Nyong'o

The Hollywood Film Awards were really stressful. It was the biggest press line I'd ever seen.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I'm Mexican and Kenyan at the same time. I've seen the quarrels over my nationality, but I'm Kenyan and Mexican at the same time. So again, I am Mexican-Kenyan, and I am fascinated by carne asada tacos.

- Lupita Nyong'o

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

- Lupita Nyong'o

There have been rumors and rumors and rumors about my love life. That's the one area that I really like to hold close to my heart.

- Lupita Nyong'o

There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I do my best work when I feel conviction to say something through the character I play. Always I want to have integrity and not compromise that.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Before the advent of the white man, black people were doing all kinds of things with their hair. The rejection of kinks and curls did come with the white man.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I loved make-believe. I was the child in the cupboard playing with my Barbies.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I spent some time back in Mexico at 16 because my parents thought it would be prudent for me to learn Spanish, because I held a Mexican passport.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up about abuse and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I grew up in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, so it's hustle and bustle, and there's always something going on.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I come from a very close class. I lucked out because drama schools are often very competitive... I have fourteen classmates.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I'm interested in generating work for myself. I have trouble with this waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring lifestyle, especially after drama school, which was so creatively fulfilling.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I would love to have a career that's governed by the material; I always want to be part of stories that I feel are worthwhile.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I'm still trying to get over the fact that my name is being mentioned with people like Brad Pitt.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I always envisioned working in film and in theater. Theater and film are not, they're not in any way substitutable. What I love about theater is so different from what I love about film, and I enjoy the craft of both.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My father used to act in high school. He was in a production of 'Othello;' I don't know who he played, but it wasn't Othello. He would talk about it, though, and read Shakespeare to me.

- Lupita Nyong'o

We, as human beings, have the capacity for extreme cruelty.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It... keeps us honest.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.

- Lupita Nyong'o

It's great to have something to dress up for. You know, I spent three years in slacks at drama school, so now I like putting a dress on.

- Lupita Nyong'o

All throughout filming '12 Years a Slave,' there was a focus like no other. Everyone took ownership of this film and gave their all.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I have the opportunity to learn about the fashion world, and I appreciate it as an art form... But I never want it to take over my acting.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.

- Lupita Nyong'o

My mother talked about the stories I used to spin as a child of three, before I started school. I would tell this story about what school I went to and what uniform I wore and who I talked to at lunchtime and what I ate, and my mother was like, 'This girl does not even go to school.'

- Lupita Nyong'o

Human beings have an instinct for freedom.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Clay can be dirt in the wrong hands, but clay can be art in the right hands.

- Lupita Nyong'o

What colonialism does is cause an identity crisis about one's own culture.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Drama is my sweet spot, but the thing about being an actor is that you want to do a variety of things. I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I want to be uncomfortable - acting is uncomfortable.

- Lupita Nyong'o

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Every single laundromat, grocery store, everything is called 'Lupita' in Mexico.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I was born in Mexico because my father was teaching at a school in Mexico City. I was born during the third year he was there. And when I was 16, I returned to Mexico to learn Spanish.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'

- Lupita Nyong'o

What's becoming very obvious to me is that fashion is art.

- Lupita Nyong'o

The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Being a part of '12 Years a Slave' has been one of the most profound experiences of my life.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Being considered a fashion star is wonderful. It's definitely a bonus thing.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Personally, I don't ever want to depend on makeup to feel beautiful.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I have a very ostrich mentality. I feel like I have my head in the sand so no one can see me.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings.

- Lupita Nyong'o

To this day, I love eating steak tacos before going to the red carpets.

- Lupita Nyong'o

Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood. And dreams are the foundation of America.

- Lupita Nyong'o

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I had moved back to Kenya after undergrad, and I went through this crisis of, 'What is my life going to be about?'

- Lupita Nyong'o

I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.

- Lupita Nyong'o

In the madness, you have to find calm.

- Lupita Nyong'o

I always love to learn new things. That's the reason I like being an actor.

- Lupita Nyong'o