Hollywood darling Lupita Nyong’o hasn’t been in the business that long, but we just can’t imagine not having her here. The African beauty is a Kenyan-Mexican actress who has stolen the hearts of many since she took the industry by storm as a production assistant.
She made her acting debut in 2008 with the short film East River. She then returned to Kenya to star in the television series Shuga from 2009 to 2012, a film that was later broadcast in various African countries for its efforts to raise awareness of HIV. Although she began acting as a teenager, the role that put her name on the world map is the role of Patsey in Steve McQueen’s historic drama 12 Years a Slave, set in 2013. She received several awards for destroying the role in the acclaimed film, including an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Kenyan and Mexican actress to win the coveted award.
While she was born in Mexico, Lupita spent most of her early years in Kenya. She is multilingual and speaks fluent English, her native language Luo, Spanish, Swahili, and a little Italian.
Lupita Nyong’o Brief Bio (Age)
Lupita was born on March 1, 1983, in Mexico City, Mexico, the second of six children, at a time when her Kenyan parents, Dorothy Ogada Buyu and Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, a college professor, were living in political exile. Lupita’s family later returned to Kenya when she was barely one year old. This followed her father’s appointment as a professor at Nairobi University. The actress then spent her years growing up in Nairobi, in what she likes to call “middle class, suburbia”. When she was 16, her parents sent her back to Mexico to study Spanish for seven months.
Although she identifies herself as Kenyan-Mexican and has dual Kenyan and Mexican citizenship, the Hollywood star is actually descended from the Luo on both sides of her family, and since it is a tradition among her people to name a child after the events of the day, she was given the Spanish name Lupita, which is a short form of Guadalupe.
Growing up Lupita was fun because her family loved everything to do with art and the children often organized performances during the family reunion. Here too, constant trips to the theatre might have triggered her talent. During her time at Rusinga International School in Kenya, she also acted in school plays and subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree in film and theatre studies at Hampshire College in the United States.
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Early Career and Rise to Stardom
Lupita began her professional acting career at the age of 14 and debuted as Juliet in the epic romance Romeo and Juliet. The play was a production of the Nairobi-based repertoire company Phoenix Players, under which Lupita also appeared in the plays On The Razzle and There Goes The Bride. American actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey and British actor Ralph Fiennes were, according to the budding star of the time, her inspiration for a professional acting career.
Before her big break, Lupita Nyong’o worked as part of the production team for films such as Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener (2005), Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006) and Salvatore Stabiles Where God Left His Shoes (2007).
After starring in the short film East River in Brooklyn directed by Marc Grey Lupita, he returned to Kenya to adorn the cast of the Kenyan television series Shuga, an MTV Base Africa/UNICEF drama that raises awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2009, when she wrote, directed, and produced the documentary In My Genes, she took her campaign to save humanity to a new level. The masterpiece, which was directed against the discriminatory treatment of Kenya’s albino population, was screened at several film festivals and won first prize at the Five College Film Festival in 2008.
Apparently, music is also her forte, as Lupita Nyong’o also directed Wahu’s music video The Little Things You Do with Bobi Wine, and the piece was nominated for Best Video Award at the 2009 MTV Africa Music Awards.
To further her career, Lupita began a master’s degree in acting at the Yale School of Drama, where she appeared in many stage productions. Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Uncle Vanya, and William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter’s Tale were just some of her work at the Yale School of Drama. Her performances at the university were not without recognition; she won the Herschel Williams Prize in the 2011-12 academic year.
Lupita Nyong’o achieved gold in her career when she achieved her groundbreaking role after graduating from Yale. The actress was cast for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, and she cast her role with so much talent that the world could not stop praising her. The film was unanimously greeted with much applause by the critics and Lupita, who took on the role of Patsey with “dashing and radiant grace”, received much applause.
Lupita not only achieved celebrity status after her big breakthrough but was also nominated for several prominent awards for her role as Patsey, some of which she won. She also broke records with some of the awards she received – she is the first African actress to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; the first Kenyan actress ever to win an Oscar.
Lupita then took the industry by storm and became a force to be reckoned with. She starred in several plays and films including Non-Stop (2014), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Eclipsed (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Queen of Katwe (2016), resumed her role as Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), Black Panther (2018). In the superhero movie Black Panther, she had to learn Xhosa to speak, practice Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Silat, and Filipino martial arts. So far, the film has become the most successful film of 2018 and has already earned over 700 million dollars just a few weeks after its release.
The Kenyan star is not resting on her laurels as she is currently developing a television series based on the novel Americanah by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She will produce both the series and the film adaptation of Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and will play the lead role in it.
Lupita Nyong’o Boyfriend
If you ask me, Lupita is apparently too busy for love. She’s been working hard to make a name for herself and take her career to different levels. By and large, all we have is rumors about who she’s likely to be dating, but there’s no hard evidence yet. Recently, the star was spotted befriending Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan and fueled the rumor with speculation that they might be a couple. Sadly, the two seem to be just friends, and Jordan is supposedly dating a woman named Ashlyn Castro.
Lupita has always been very maternal about her love life. The closest thing we have so far is that she was in a love affair with Nigerian fashion journalist Mobolaji Dawodu of GQ Style.
Net Worth
After playing in blockbusters and winning numerous awards, Lupita Nyong’o has a net worth of $5 million. In addition, her net worth will inevitably continue to grow at the rate her latest offering, Black Panther, has reached, enabling her to compete with Hollywood’s biggest shots.
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Lupita Nyong’o Awards
She’s no doubt an award darling as they find her each time. She has been nominated for countless awards and won a slew of them as well. Some of her accolades include;
Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
2014 – 12 Years a Slave.
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
2014 – 12 Years a Slave.
BET Award for Best Actress.
2014 – 12 Years a Slave.
Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female
2014 – 12 Years a Slave.
Glamour Award for Woman of the Year
2014.
Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress
2014 – 12 Years a Slave
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.
2014 – 12 Years a Slave.
Obie Award for Performance
2016 – Eclipsed
Glamour Award for The Breakthrough
2014.
MTV Africa Music Award for Personality of the Year
2014.
