Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Amondi Nyong’o is from Kenya. Born March 1st, 1983. She has been nominated for a Tony Award and a Golden Globe Award and has won other awards, including an Academy Award, a Daytime Emmy Award, and other recognitions.
She was born in Mexico City, where her father was a professor, and reared in Kenya starting at the age of three. She is the daughter of Kenyan politician Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o. She went to college in the US and graduated from Hampshire College with a bachelor’s degree in film and theater studies. Later, she started working as a production assistant in Hollywood.
She made her acting debut in the 2008 short film East River before going back to Kenya to star in the 2009–2012 television series Shuga. She subsequently went on to the Yale School of Drama to get a master’s in acting. Soon after receiving her degree, she landed her first leading role in a feature film, playing Patsey in Steve McQueen’s biopic 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which she earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Lupita Nyong’o made her Broadway debut in the 2015 play Eclipsed as a young orphan, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. She later played Maz Kanata in the motion capture version of the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015–2019) and Raksha in the voice version of The Jungle Book (2016). With her portrayal as Nakia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero flicks Black Panther (2018) and its sequel (2022) as well as her lead part in Jordan Peele’s horror movie Us (2019), Nyong’o’s career advanced.