Actress Lupita Amondi Nyongo “12 Years a Slave is in my genes.” Oscar’s 2014 Best Supporting Actress Lupita Amondi Nyongo is a Kenyan Academy Award winning actress, film and music video director. After appearing as Patsy in Steve McQueens 12 Years a Slave, March 2, 2014, she won the Academy Award’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Other awards include; the Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in addition to receiving nominations for the Golden Globe and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. Born: March 1, 1983 Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenya politican, Peter Anyang Nyongo, and Dorothy, Nyong’o. Of Luo descent on both sides and keeping Luo tradition, [naming a child after the days events] her parents named her Lupita (a diminutive of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Guadalupe), and she is the second of six children At the time of Lupitas birth, her father, the former Kenyan Minister for Medical Services, was visiting Mexico City as a lecturer in political science at El Colegio de Mexico, the family had been living there for three years. She was less than a year old when her father was appointed professor at the University of Nairobi, and the family returned to Kenya. Primarily growing up in Kenya, she describes her upbringing as middle class, suburbanupita” In 2013, her father was elected to represent Kisumu County in the Kenyan Senate. Her mother is currently the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and owner of a communications company. A cousin Tavia Nyongo is a scholar and professor at New York University, and in 2012 Forbes Magazine named her older cousin Isis Nyongo one of Africas most powerful women. Returning to Mexico at sixteen, studying seven months at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexicos Learning Center for Foreigners to study Spanish, and is fluent in Spanish, English, Swahili, her native Luo, Recently, at the Essence Black Women In Hollywood luncheon in Beverly Hills, February 27, 2014, Lupita, [who lives in Brooklyn] spoke about a letter she received from a young fan, that stated she was unhappy with herself until she saw the actress on the cover of a magazine. Relating to her own insecurities as a teenager, growing up as a dark skinned black girl, she placed emphasis on how women that looked like her, were barely portrayed in the media, and when they were, they were not deemed as being beautiful. Lupita said views about herself changed when she saw South Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek become successful. When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny,” she added. “Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 19:13:59 +0000
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