Lupita Nyong’o Bio
Lupita Amondi Nyong’o (born 1 March 1983) is an actress who has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two British Academy Film Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. The daughter of Kenyan politician Anyang’ Nyong’o, she was born in Mexico City and was raised in Kenya from the age of three. She began her career working as part of the production crew for several films, but gained fame after starring in the critically acclaimed film 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Nyong’o went on to build a versatile career across film, television, stage, and voice acting. She is known for performances in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Black Panther (2018), Us (2019), and A Quiet Place: Day One (2024). She is also a New York Times best-selling children’s book author and a passionate advocate for wildlife conservation and women’s rights.
Early Life and Background
Lupita Amondi Nyong’o was born on 1 March 1983 in Mexico City to Kenyan parents, Dorothy Ogada Buyu and Anyang’ Nyong’o, a college professor and politician. The family had left Kenya in 1980 because of political repression. Her father was a visiting lecturer in political science at El Colegio de México at the time of her birth. She is of Luo descent on both sides of her family and is the second of six children. By Luo tradition, children are named after the events of the day, and her parents gave her a Spanish name, Lupita, a diminutive of Guadalupe.
The family returned to Kenya when Nyong’o was under a year old, after her father was appointed as a professor at the University of Nairobi. She grew up primarily in Nairobi in an artistic, middle-class family. Family gatherings often included performances by the children, and trips to the theatre sparked her early love of acting. She attended Rusinga International School in Kenya, where she acted in school plays.
At the age of 14, Nyong’o made her professional acting debut as Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the Nairobi-based repertory company Phoenix Players. She credits the performances of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple with inspiring her to pursue a professional acting career. When she was 16, her parents sent her to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish, during which she lived in Taxco, Guerrero, and studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s Learning Centre for Foreigners.
Path to Acting
Nyong’o later attended St. Mary’s School in Nairobi, where she received an IB Diploma in 2001, finishing second in her class. She went to the United States for college, graduating from Hampshire College with a degree in film and theatre studies. After college, she began her career in Hollywood as a production assistant, working on films such as The Constant Gardener (2005), The Namesake (2006), and Where God Left His Shoes (2007). She cites Ralph Fiennes, the British star of The Constant Gardener, as someone who inspired her to pursue a professional acting career.
In 2008, Nyong’o starred in the short film East River, directed by Marc Grey and shot in Brooklyn. She returned to Kenya that same year and appeared in the MTV Base Africa/UNICEF television series Shuga, a drama about HIV/AIDS prevention. In 2009, she wrote, directed, and produced the documentary In My Genes, about the discriminatory treatment of Kenya’s albino population. The film won first prize at the 2008 Five College Film Festival.
Nyong’o enrolled in a master’s degree program in acting at the Yale School of Drama. At Yale, she appeared in many stage productions, including Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Uncle Vanya, and The Taming of the Shrew. She won the Herschel Williams Prize in the 2011–12 academic year for acting students with outstanding ability.
Lupita Nyong’o Career
Early Career (2005–2012)
During her early career, Nyong’o worked behind the scenes on major Hollywood productions, including Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener and Mira Nair’s The Namesake. These experiences gave her insight into filmmaking and helped shape her decision to pursue acting. Her first on-screen appearance came in 2008 with the short film East River, followed by her role in the Kenyan television series Shuga.
Her documentary work during this period, including In My Genes, demonstrated her interest in stories that explore identity and social issues in Africa. The film won first prize at the Five College Film Festival and screened at several international festivals. She also directed the music video for Wahu’s song The Little Things You Do, which earned a nomination at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2009.
Breakthrough (2013–Present)
Immediately after graduating from Yale, Nyong’o landed her breakthrough role when she was cast in Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). The film, based on the life of Solomon Northup, a free-born African-American man kidnapped and sold into slavery, received widespread critical acclaim. Nyong’o portrayed Patsey, a slave who works alongside Northup at a Louisiana cotton plantation, earning rave reviews from critics. Empire reviewer Ian Freer wrote that she gives one of the most committed big-screen debuts imaginable.
Her performance in 12 Years a Slave earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Kenyan and the first Mexican to win an Oscar. She also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She became the sixth black actress to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the fifteenth actress to win an Oscar for a film debut performance.
Following her Oscar win, Nyong’o took on the motion-capture role of Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and reprised the role in the sequel trilogy. She made her Broadway debut in 2015 with the play Eclipsed, written by Danai Gurira, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play and winning an Obie Award. In 2018, she starred as Nakia in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, a massive critical and commercial success that grossed over $1.34 billion worldwide. She reprised the role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).
Nyong’o continued to take on challenging roles across genres, starring in Jordan Peele’s psychological horror film Us (2019) as both Adelaide Wilson and her doppelgänger Red, earning an NAACP Image Award for Best Actress. She voiced the lead role of Roz in the animated film The Wild Robot (2024) and starred in the horror prequel A Quiet Place: Day One (2024). She was also cast in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic film The Odyssey, set for release in 2026.
Notable Works and Milestones
Nyong’o is best known for her Academy Award-winning performance in 12 Years a Slave, her dual role in Us, and her performances in the Black Panther films. She has also earned acclaim on Broadway in Eclipsed, and her debut children’s book Sulwe (2019) became a number-one New York Times best-seller. In 2014, she was named The Most Beautiful Woman by People, and in 2020, she was named one of Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women by Forbes.
Lupita Nyong’o Award Nominations
Lupita Nyong’o has received numerous award nominations across her career in film, television, and theatre. She has been nominated for two British Academy Film Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Eclipsed. She has also earned nominations at the Saturn Awards, NAACP Image Awards, and Primetime Emmy Awards for her work in film and narration.
Lupita Nyong’o Awards Won
Lupita Nyong’o has won several major awards throughout her career, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave (2013), making her the first Kenyan and the first Mexican to win the award. She also won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same role, a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Children’s Program for Netflix’s Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices (2020), and a Tony Award nomination for her Broadway work. Her other notable wins include an Obie Award for her performance in Eclipsed, a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut, and an NAACP Image Award for Best Actress for her role in Us.
Lupita Nyong’o Family
Lupita Nyong’o is the daughter of Dorothy Ogada Buyu and Anyang’ Nyong’o, a Kenyan politician who has served as a Member of the Kenyan Parliament, Minister for Medical Services, and Governor of Kisumu County. Her mother is the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and her own communications company. She is the second of six children and is of Luo descent on both sides of her family. Her siblings include Tavia Nyong’o, a scholar and professor at New York University; Omondi Nyong’o, a paediatric ophthalmologist; Kwame Nyong’o, one of Kenya’s leading animators; and Isis Nyong’o, a media and technology leader named one of Africa’s most powerful young women by Forbes.
Personal Life
As of 2024, Nyong’o lives in Los Angeles, having moved there from Brooklyn in June 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a fluent speaker of English, Spanish, Luo, and Swahili. In October 2017, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal, she wrote an op-ed for The New York Times disclosing that Weinstein had sexually harassed her on two separate occasions in 2011 when she was a student at Yale. Her op-ed was part of a collection of stories by The New York Times and The New Yorker that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In August 2024, she announced that she had become a U.S. citizen and planned to vote in her first U.S. presidential election.
