Lupita Nyong’o’s performance in Steve McQueen’s epic period drama 12 Years A Slave is breathtaking.
Hailing from a prominent family (her father, a former politician, is a professor at the University of Nairobi), the Mexican-born, Kenyan-raised actress portrays Patsey, a wunderkind cotton picker who attends to the “predilections and peculiarities” of her psychotic master (played by Michael Fassbender) with a power that mesmerizes and horrifies. This may be her bigscreen debut, but the emerging starlet is no stranger to film or controversy: In 2009, the former star of Shuga, (a provocative series promoting responsible sexual behavior) on MTV Base in Africa, wrote directed and produced In My Genes, a documentary on the harsh realities of living as an albino in Kenya.
On the verge of stratospheric success, Nyong’o talks costars, love and invaluable lessons.
[Originally publishes Oct. 24, 2013]
Opposition: Oprah
Her performance is a tour de force that has already garnered her the New Hollywood Award at this year’s 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards (previous winners include Gabourey Sidibe and her 12 Years costar Quvenzhané Wallis). And odds makers are pitting Nyong’o against Oprah Winfrey, star of Lee Daniels’ The Butler, for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar race next year. “It was phenomenal,” says the Hampshire College and Yale School of Drama grad of the role, which she beat out 1000 other women for. “This is the material that I have dreamed of working on. And to be able to do it so soon after my training at Yale was an incredible opportunity.”
Southern (Dis)Comfort
12 Years a Slave is based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a highly educated, financially successful free black man (played by Chiwetal Ejiofor) from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., who is kidnapped during a visit to Washington, D.C., and sold into slavery in Louisiana in pre–Civil War United States. While in captivity, he and Patsey forge a bond that is both beautiful and brutal (Patsey’s whipping makes Denzel’s scene in Glory look pedestrian). “Chiwetel is a very sturdy actor,” says the 30-year-old. “Solomon is a comfort to Patsey and, as an actor, Chiwetel was truly a comfort to me.”
A Deeper Love
“Solomon Northup’s love for freedom and his family is what keeps him going when things get really tough,” says Nyong’o, who landed on her first major movie set back in the mid-aughts after cleverly snagging a job as Ralph Fiennes’ runner during the shooting of 2005’s The Constant Gardener in Kenya. “The institution of slavery was built on fear,” she adds, “and fear is the absence of love.”
Elegant Explorer
Her fashion sense—an as-of-yet foolproof mix of glamour and minimalistic cool—has scores of fashion editors crushing. But Nyong’o, who next stars alongside Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore in Jaume Collet-Serra’s action thriller Non-Stop, has deeper issues on her mind, and is reveling in this moment and its significance. “There was so much darkness and light in Patsey at the same time. And that was something that I was looking forward to exploring. We need to reflect on that time, face that time and accept that time in order to move forward.”