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My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.
Lupita Nyong'o
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Personally, I don't ever want to depend on makeup to feel beautiful.
Lupita Nyong'o -
One of the reasons why I went to the Yale School of Drama is because I felt that I was acting off of instinct, but sometimes that is not reliable. When you're not feeling it, what do you do? So, going to grad school was about getting the tools to just use my instrument to the best of my ability.
Lupita Nyong'o -
It's great to have something to dress up for. You know, I spent three years in slacks at drama school, so now I like putting a dress on.
Lupita Nyong'o -
As human beings, what makes us able to empathize with people is a connection that is not necessarily understood mentally.
Lupita Nyong'o -
We, as human beings, have the capacity for extreme cruelty.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I feel privileged that people are looking up to me, and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence.
Lupita Nyong'o
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I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.
Lupita Nyong'o -
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.
Lupita Nyong'o -
What colonialism does is cause an identity crisis about one's own culture.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I want to be uncomfortable - acting is uncomfortable.
Lupita Nyong'o -
My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I have the opportunity to learn about the fashion world, and I appreciate it as an art form... But I never want it to take over my acting.
Lupita Nyong'o
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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.
Lupita Nyong'o -
Before the advent of the white man, black people were doing all kinds of things with their hair. The rejection of kinks and curls did come with the white man.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I grew up in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya, so it's hustle and bustle, and there's always something going on.
Lupita Nyong'o -
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.
Lupita Nyong'o -
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.'
Lupita Nyong'o -
I had moved back to Kenya after undergrad, and I went through this crisis of, 'What is my life going to be about?'
Lupita Nyong'o
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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.
Lupita Nyong'o -
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.
Lupita Nyong'o -
I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings.
Lupita Nyong'o -
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.
Lupita Nyong'o