Lupita Nyong’o speaks out against Hollywood for stereotyping her

Lupita Nyong’o first won an Oscar in 2014 for 12 Years a Slave, in which she plays Patsey, an enslaved African American woman.

But against her expectations, the offers she received were for similar roles to those she played in the 2013 movie.

“It really did set the paces for everything I’ve done since,” she tells CNN Inside Africa, adding, “But you know what’s interesting is that, after I won that Academy Award, you’d think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get lead roles here and there.’

But she acknowledges that Hollywood stereotyped her after 12 Years a Slave. “[Instead, it was], ‘Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to play another movie where you’re a slave, but this time you’re on a slave ship.’ Those are the kind of offers I was getting in the months after winning my Academy Award.”

That was tough, as Lupita recalls; at the time, there were articles in the press, “There were thinkpieces about: ‘Is this the beginning and end of this dark-skinned Black African woman’s career?’ 

'I had to deafen myself to all those pontificators because, at the end of the day, I’m not a theory; I’m an actual person.”

In the meantime, Lupita is set to star in the forthcoming Lunik Heist.