Lupita Nyong’o

In 2014, moviegoers had to make great efforts to learn and pronounce the names of candidates such as Chiwetel Ejiofor or Barkhad Abdi (and that in the previous edition Quvenzhané Wallis set the bar quite high). They say that Lupita Nyong’o’s last name sounds more or less like ‘ñongo’. Although she is a newcomer, she has unleashed a real furor in Hollywood. Her alleged rivalry with Miley Cyrus in love affairs has made rivers of ink flow.

Lupita’s father, Peter Anyang Nyong’o, distinguished himself by supporting democratic reform in Kenya, for which he temporarily had to leave the country. He settled in Mexico City, where his wife, Dorothy, also a politician, gave birth to the future actress on March 1, 1983. They named the newborn Lupita, which sounded like a local name, but in its tongue is pronounced the same as ‘Peter’s daughter’.

When the girl was one year old, the family was able to return to their country, where the father is currently a senator, while the mother runs the Africa Cancer Foundation. “My parents have been instrumental in helping me calmly cope with the fame that the Oscar nomination has given me,” says the actress. Lupita was sent to live at the age of 16 in the country of her birth to learn to love Latin American culture and to speak Spanish. At that time, she invented the term ‘Mexikeniata’ to explain her nationality.

When she was very young, she was dazzled by Steven Spielberg ‘s The Color Purple , due to the work of African-Americans Whoopi Goldberg  and Oprah Winfrey , who made her dream that despite coming from Kenya she too could succeed in Hollywood. She studied film and theater at Hampshire College, a select institution in Amherst, Massachusetts. When she graduated she enrolled in the Yale School of Dramatic Arts.

Lupita Nyong’o began her career as a production creditor on The Constant Gardener . Following the short East River , she landed a role in the Kenyan miniseries Shuga , where she played a high school student.

British filmmaker Steve McQueen struggled to find the right actress to play Patsey, the slave who unleashes the jealousy of the plantation owner’s wife, in 12 Years a Slave . It is said in the gossip of Hollywood that the filmmaker interviewed more than a thousand candidates, which was humorously compared to the search for Scarlett O’Hara. When she was about to give up, Lupita Nyong’o appeared and as soon as she saw her, McQueen realized that she was her ideal actress.

Playing the character was quite a challenge, as he had a hard time: a bottle was thrown at his head, he even asked the protagonist, Solomon Northup ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) to help him commit suicide, and in one of the toughest sequences he is seen forced to whip her. But Lupita Nyongo did an excellent job, to the point that she has won the BAFTA for best secondary, and an Oscar nomination, which are delivered just the day after her birthday.

Her supposed romance with Jared Leto , who also opts for the golden statuette, in the same section as her but in a male version, for her work at Dallas Buyers Club , was published in the tabloids . Both caused a furor among photojournalists who were looking for a photo of the couple holding hands, when they attended the different Academy Awards parties. At the same time, other outlets were claiming that Leto was actually with Miley Cyrus .

But Lupita has denied the rumor, and has taken it with humor. “I have read so many details about my relationship with Leto that there has come a time when I myself doubted if it was not true,” said the actress.

Will the Oscar nomination boost his career? At the moment, she has shot under the orders of a Spaniard, Jaume Collet-Serra , the thriller Non-Stop (Without stopovers) , where he shares the bill with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore .