Lupita Nyong'o Quotes

The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story.

Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

It's only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you're not expressing the utmost of your human experience.

Steve McQueen is a genius. And I think that word is overused, but I think with Steve it's rightly used. He's a genius.

I come from a very close class. I lucked out because drama schools are often very competitive ... I have fourteen classmates.

I give myself homework when I have an audition. I give myself goals, and that's how I check how I'm doing. It can be something simple like 'listen,' or 'find your feet.' And then afterward it's an assessment, so in a way it's not about booking the job or not. It's about what I learned as an actor about that character.

I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.

I had this vivid image of myself at the age of 60 looking back on my life and truly regretting the fact that I hadn't tried to be an actor

[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.

Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It ... keeps us honest.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

You can't eat beauty, it doesn't sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion, for yourself and those around you. That kind of beauty inflamed the heart and merchants the soul.

Being considered a fashion star is wonderful. It's definitely a bonus thing.

I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses.

It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's.

My father used to act in high school. He was in a production of 'Othello;' I don't know who he played, but it wasn't Othello. He would talk about it, though, and read Shakespeare to me.

I like to wear things, I don't like things to wear me.

What I will say is that what I have learned for myself is that I don't have to be anybody else; and that myself is good enough; and that when I am being true to that self, then I can avail myself to extraordinary thingsYou have to allow for the impossible to be possible.

I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned,

There is something about acting that's mysterious and magical because there is only so much I can do to prepare, and then I have to just let go and breathe and believe that it will come through.

There's always a sense of newness with acting, because every role, you come to every role fresh.

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'

You can't rely on how you look to sustain you, what sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion; for yourself and for those around you.

I haven't always been gluten-free.

The first time I cut all my hair off was when I was 19. I just got fed up going to the salon every week. I'd had enough! On a whim, it was off. It's low-maintenance.

What's becoming very obvious to me is that fashion is art.

Seek perfection, and find joy in never attaining it.

Personally, I don't ever want to depend on makeup to feel beautiful.

Human beings have an instinct for freedom.

I do my best work when I feel conviction to say something through the character I play. Always I want to have integrity and not compromise that.

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

I grew up in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, so it's hustle and bustle, and there's always something going on.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

In the madness, you have to find calm.

Being a part of '12 Years a Slave' has been one of the most profound experiences of my life.

That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade to that beauty.

I grew up in a world where the majority of people were black, so that wasn't the defining quality of anyone. When you're describing someone, you don't start out with 'he's black, he's white.'

Drama is my sweet spot, but the thing about being an actor is that you want to do a variety of things. I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.

I am thrilled beyond words that The Academy has recognized my performance in Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave,' and I am deeply proud to be in the company of my fellow nominees.

My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.

As actors, you become an expert at starting over.

I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings.

My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative.

I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

And what my mother meant when she said you can't eat beauty was that you can't rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul.

I have a very ostrich mentality. I feel like I have my head in the sand so no one can see me.

I feel privileged that people are looking up to me, and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence.

I'm interested in generating work for myself. I have trouble with this waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring lifestyle, especially after drama school, which was so creatively fulfilling.

No matter where you are from your dreams are valid.

No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid.

I never understood who all those people are behind the actors! When you see them on the red carpet on TV, you go, 'Why does that person need such a large entourage?' And then you realize that every single person there has a role to play.

Even in my dreams of being an actor, my dream was not in the celebrity. My dream was in the work that I wanted to do.

Makeup isn't something I've worn a lot of in my life.