Lupita Nyong'o

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o is a Kenyan-Mexican actress. She was born in Mexico City and raised in Kenya. Nyong'o attended college in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree in film and theatre studies from Hampshire College. She later began her career in Hollywood as a production assistant. In 2008, she made her acting debut with the short film East River and subsequently returned to Kenya to star in the television series Shuga. In 2009, she wrote, produced and directed the documentary In My Genes. She then pursued a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Soon after her graduation, she had her first feature film role as Patsey in Steve McQueen's biographical period drama 12 Years a Slave, for which she received critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Nyong'o made her Broadway debut as a teenage orphan in the play Eclipsed, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She went on to perform a motion capture role as Maz Kanata in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and a lead voice role as Raksha in The Jungle Book. Nyong'o's career progressed with her role as Nakia in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Black Panther and her starring role in Jordan Peele's critically acclaimed horror film Us.

Aside from acting, Nyong'o supports historic preservation. She is vocal about preventing sexual harassment, working for women's and animal rights. In 2014, she was named the most beautiful woman by People. In 2019, Nyong'o wrote a children's book named Sulwe, which became a number-one New York Times Best-Seller. That same year, Nyong'o narrated the Discovery Channel docu-series Serengeti, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Narrator. In 2020, Nyong'o was named one of Africa's "50 Most Powerful Women" by Forbes.