Cover Story: Lupita Nyong’o Talks Style, Social Media And Self-Confidence
BY LAURA MORGAN
Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar-winning actress, is sitting on the living room floor of the hilltop Hollywood home where she was just photographed, in the most poised manner one can imagine from someone sitting on the floor. Her posture is perfect; her body language is fit for a pilates class poster. She’s telling me about how she and her younger brother, Peter, like to bet on how popular her Instagram posts will be. Considering her massive fan base—1.3 million on the platform alone—the numbers pile up fast. A Sesame Street set photo of Nyong’o with Elmo scored 87,000 likes. A party shot with Cara Delevingne netted 50,000. (Don’t worry, Cara, it’s tough to trump a furry childhood icon.) “We give it 30 seconds and then hit refresh, and whoever got closest to the actual number of likes added in that time wins,” Nyong’o says gleefully. “Well, we win nothing but pride,” she clarifies. “But it’s really addictive.” Her social-media shine has rubbed off on Peter; the college student/possible aspiring actor/talented saxophonist now has over 13,000 followers himself. Since taking him as her date to the Academy Awards last year, Nyong’o says, “Everywhere I go, people famous and non-famous ask me, ‘How’s your brother?’”
While oversharing has become the default mode of celebrities old and new (see James Franco and Seth Rogen’s naked selfie, Madonna’s underarm hair, Miley Cyrus’ … um, it’s hard to pick just one), Nyong’o is not attempting to break the Internet. “I’m governed by things that made me smile, laugh and think,” she says. “And if they do that to me, then I ask myself, Would anybody else care to see this? If I can think of one person, I post it.”
The fact is, whether Nyong’o posts, tweets or speaks, people listen. Since appearing as the brutalized yet brave Patsey in 12 Years a Slave, for which she won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the newly 32-year-old star has entered a class of celebrities whose off-duty actions are arguably as powerful as their on-screen ones. Last year, at Essence’s Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, her recollection of bartering with God, as a girl, to lighten her “night-shaded skin” moved many to tears. In December she earned rousing applause from an audience of over 10,000 at the Massachusetts Conference for Women, where she was a keynote speaker. (Sage advice: “Our dreams belong to us. We owe it to ourselves to try to realize them.”) In her short two years in the spotlight, Nyong’o has issued enough thought-provoking missives to out-Oprah Oprah, a hero of hers since The Color Purple.
You might think that these engagements would be easy for Nyong’o—after all, in her first big screen role, she arguably outshone veteran actors Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender. But without the cover of a character, even the coolly composed actress gets rattled. Of public speaking, she admits, “It makes me very nervous. My heart is on my sleeve when I do those things, but the only way I know to do them is to speak from my heart. So it costs me a lot … and then I need to take a nap.”
Nyong’o’s eloquence makes her a natural pick for a spokesperson. And last April, Lancôme signed her on as one of its ambassadresses. Ironically, she had been forbidden to use cosmetics until she was nearly 18. “My mother has never ever worn a drop of makeup in her life—not even at her wedding,” she recalls. As a girl, Nyong’o’s only real exposure to the world of creams, sticks and shadows came via an aunt who would occasionally visit with the contraband materials and paint her face while her mother was out. “Honestly, my mother’s outlook was hard for me to take when I was a teenager and I wanted to experiment. But in the end I appreciated it, because today I can look in a mirror with no makeup on and love myself.”
The star counts a diverse range of women among her personal beauty inspirations: Nina Simone (for embracing her strong African features), Grace Jones (for her experimental style) and Elizabeth Taylor: “feminine, regal and passionate,” says Nyong’o. “I don’t think the most memorable people are remembered for their looks,” she continues. “They’re remembered for their spirit, and their spirit influences what they look like. Even with Marilyn Monroe, there was an innocence and a vulnerability about her that made her beauty stand out.” To coincide with International Women’s Day (March 8), Nyong’o will appear in a digital campaign for Lancôme called Beauty Beyond the Image, featuring an online video that will drive the point home. (Let the betting begin on how many likes this one will garner.)
There are those days, however, when a little lipstick helps. When asked what her go-to product is, Nyong’o reaches into her cobalt blue Balenciaga crocodile tote to produce the hard evidence. “Where is it? It’s in here, I know,” she says, digging until she emerges with a slim cylinder. “I always have a Lancôme Lip Lover, in one shade or another, in my purse. They just add a little something. I’ll choose the color depending on what I’m wearing and how much tint I want—this one is really, really light, but it dresses you up immediately.”
Since 12 Years a Slave made her a breakout star, Nyong’o has certainly had the occasion to dress up. The practical girl who liked to make her own clothes (she even designed her own prom dress)—and who today is simply but chicly dressed in body-hugging DL1961 jeans, fantastic Malone Souliers blue-and-white kitten heels, a long-sleeved white top and a cropped midnight blue Michael Kors leather jacket—swears she isn’t a fashion natural. Lucky for her, then, that stylist Micaela Erlanger is at her disposal and ready to provide a steady flow of designer looks. Their hits have included the caped, floor-length Ralph Lauren Collection gown Nyong’o wore to 2014’s Golden Globes (and which landed her on virtually every best-dressed list imaginable), the princess-worthy pale blue Prada gown in which she accepted her Oscar and, recently, the pretty purple Giambattista Valli dress, which she accessorized with a pair of geek-goddess glasses, for this year’s Globes. (Immediately afterward, a Twitter feed popped up in their name. That’s right, an account for her glasses.)
In the early days of her relationship with Erlanger—fun fact: Nyongo’s friend Michelle Dockery, a.k.a. Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary, introduced them—there were Pinterest boards and all-day fittings. Nowadays there are still endless outfits to decide on, but loads of trust, too. When asked how she decided Erlanger was the right match for her, Nyong’o, in a fleeting moment of goofiness, responds, “I liked that she was young and energetic and that she said things like”—here she affects a flawless Valley Girl accent—“ ‘Totally’ and ‘Awesome!’”
Lest one suggest that Nyong’o’s allegiance to lip gloss and Louboutins lessens her credibility as a cheerleader for inner beauty, think again. “My mother didn’t think makeup was necessary, and I don’t think it’s necessary,” she explains. “It’s an accessory. It’s as necessary as a pair of earrings, if you know what I mean. It’s something I do to adorn myself. I don’t do it to hide myself.”
She couldn’t if she wanted to. Since 12 Years a Slave and the attendant flurry of TV interviews, magazine covers and red carpet appearances, for better and worse, Nyong’o’s face is unmistakable. “The not-so-fun part of all this is that when I don’t feel like being famous, I still am,” she admits. “When you’re in the middle of Manhattan and you have to pop into Starbucks to use the restroom and everyone recognizes you when you’re waiting on line, it’s awkward.” I ask if she’s come up with a way to cope: some clever disguise, a wig, a hoodie, a full-body Snuggie, maybe? She admits that she has. So, what is it? “I’ll never tell,” she says slyly, raising an eyebrow and putting a polite end to the discussion.
If there’s a road map to movie stardom, it sure isn’t one that Lupita Nyong’o had access to. The Mexi-Kenyan, as she’s described herself, was born in Mexico City and returned to her family’s native Nairobi, Kenya, when she was less than a year old. (At 16, she returned to Mexico to learn Spanish.) No one in her family had a clue about Hollywood, let alone the connections that might get her there. Nevertheless they did, in their own way, prepare her for the spotlight that was to come.
“All of my life, my father was a high-profile person,” says Nyong’o, whose dad, Peter, a professor and political activist, is now a senator in the Kenyan parliament. If there is a slacker in the Nyong’o family, we can’t find one: Her mother, Dorothy, is on the board of the Africa Cancer Foundation; her cousin Isis is a technology executive who was voted one of the most powerful young women in Africa; and her cousin Tavia is a respected cultural critic. “Being brought up in the family that I was brought up in, we were always in a position of example. So it’s something I don’t wrestle with. I don’t question it. I accept it.” Considering her ability to wow a crowd and her willingness to speak out for causes she believes in, it’s easy to envision Nyong’o herself one day holding office. “I think there should be a rule: One politician per family,” she demurs.
Nyong’o’s father had gone to college in the United States, and so, it was expected, would she. In 2003 she enrolled in Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where she took an interest in film and theater studies and entertained the idea of working behind the scenes when she graduated. Over time, though, she came to terms with the fact that acting—yes, that capricious profession—was undeniably her calling. Despite having some experience (she was Juliet in a Kenyan production of Romeo and Juliet and starred in Shuga, an MTV Base series that aired in Africa and focused on raising awareness about HIV), she wasn’t about to wing it. “I’m the kind of person who reads the instructions,” she says. “Even if I don’t follow them, I will read them. You know, I buy a juicer and there I go, reading the manual from page one to page 30.”
Getting into Yale School of Drama is the equivalent of buying the Vitamix 750 Professional Series Blender—it’s the top-of-the-line, accept-no-substitutes option. But Nyong’o was undaunted. “What I had to do was just show up and do my thing—to dare to try.”
Before Yale, she says, “I didn’t feel like I had a full grasp of my instrument. I needed to know more. Pursuing acting in that way made me feel equipped and helped me manage my inner critic, which is something I thought I really needed—the ability to quiet that voice that says ‘You can’t do this.’”
Looking back on all that’s happened to Nyong’o since she was cast in 12 Years a Slave, it appears there’s nothing she can’t do. In April 2016, she’ll voice Raksha, the mother wolf in Disney’s The Jungle Book, and this December, she’ll go to a galaxy far, far away to take on a top-secret role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a franchise so iconic that even she admits she can’t grasp the magnitude of it yet. Further down the road, she’ll star in (with Selma’s David Oyelowo) and produce (with Brad Pitt) a love story about two Nigerian immigrants based on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning book Americanah. Clearly Lupita Nyong’o is here to stay.
But even now, despite the accolades, the magazine covers and the many likes coming her way, that self-doubting voice pops into her head. “Do I still hear it once in a while? Only on a daily basis,” she says with a laugh. “It’s not a voice one should get rid of. It keeps you in check. It focuses you. You just have to manage it and not let it get stronger than the voice that says ‘You can do this.’ ” Like we said, watch your back, Oprah.
