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Oscar-winning actress and author
She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her debut film role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave (2013).
Lupita Nyong'o (born March 1, 1983, in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Kenyan-Mexican Oscar-winning actress who holds citizenship in Kenya, Mexico, and the United States. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her debut film role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave (2013), becoming the first Mexican actress to win an Oscar. Her name is pronounced loo-PEE-tah NYAWN-goh, and as a Pisces born on March 1, she has starred in major films including Black Panther (2018, 2022), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Us (2019), A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), and The Wild Robot (2024).
Born in Mexico City on March 1, 1983, to Kenyan parents Peter Anyang' Nyong'o (a politician and professor) and Dorothy Ogada Buyu, Lupita returned to Kenya before her first birthday when her father became a professor at the University of Nairobi. She grew up in Nairobi speaking multiple languages including English, Swahili, Spanish, and Luo, having spent seven months in Mexico at age 16 specifically to learn Spanish. She made her stage debut at 14 as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet with the Nairobi-based Phoenix Players, earned a film and theatre degree from Hampshire College, and graduated from Yale School of Drama with a master's in acting in 2012.
Lupita Nyong'o speaks four languages fluently: English, Spanish, Swahili, and Luo, reflecting her multinational upbringing across Kenya, Mexico, and the United States. She is the second of six children in an artistic family, with siblings including Tavia Nyong'o (a New York University professor), Kwame Nyong'o (an animator), and Isis Nyong'o (named one of Africa's most powerful young women by Forbes). She identifies as both Kenyan and Mexican, addressing her Latino identity by explaining that while she was born in Mexico and speaks Spanish, her cultural roots are primarily Kenyan and African; she advocates for women's rights, animal rights, and historic preservation, and wrote the children's book Sulwe (2019), which became a New York Times bestseller.
Her name is pronounced loo-PEE-tah NYAWN-goh, with Lupita being the diminutive of Guadalupe, a Spanish name given by her parents following Luo tradition of naming children after events of the day.
She speaks four languages fluently: English, Spanish, Swahili, and Luo, having lived in Kenya, Mexico, and the United States.
She became the first Mexican actress to win an Academy Award when she won Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave in 2014.
Her full name is Lupita Amondi Nyong'o, and she holds triple citizenship in Kenya, Mexico, and the United States.
People magazine named her the most beautiful woman in 2014, and Forbes named her one of Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women in 2020.
Your dreams are valid no matter where you're from.
I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.
Born on March 1 in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents Peter Anyang' Nyong'o and Dorothy Ogada Buyu
Made professional acting debut at age 14 as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet with Phoenix Players in Nairobi
Starred in the short film East River, marking her screen acting debut
Graduated from Yale School of Drama with a master's degree in acting
Made feature film debut as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen
Won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave, becoming the first Mexican actress to win an Oscar
Made Broadway debut in Eclipsed and starred as Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Voiced Raksha the wolf in Disney's The Jungle Book and received Tony Award nomination for Eclipsed
Starred as Nakia in Black Panther, which became a global phenomenon and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast
Starred in Jordan Peele's horror film Us and published children's book Sulwe, which became a New York Times bestseller
Named one of Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women by Forbes magazine
Reprised role as Nakia in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Starred in A Quiet Place: Day One and voiced Roz in the animated film The Wild Robot