5 Reasons We’re Loving Lupita Nyong’o

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There is no doubt that Lupita Nyong’o has cast a spell on Hollywood and the world. The Academy Award-winning actress has catapulted to the top of best-dressed lists, A-lists and fashion-muses list, and she is basking in the moment. Given the few roles available for female actresses of color, Nyong’o’s success beyond 12 Years a Slave is in flux. Our fixation with her is not.

Despite Hollywood’s flightiness, there’s no limit to the fashion greatness in Nyong’o’s future. She earned a coveted spot as the face of Miu Miu’s spring advertising campaign. Additionally, she’s been featured on the covers and in the pages of W, Dujour, Dazed & Confused, New York Magazine, the Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair.

Related: Are We Obsessed With Perfection? Lupita Nyong’o Vanity Fair Controversy

Lupita Nyong’o is quickly ascending into the stratosphere, and here are five reasons we’re thrilled to witness her journey.

1. Lupita is extremely talented.

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Lupita was trained at the prestigious Yale School of Drama, and it shows. She was remarkable as Patsey, a mentally, physically and emotionally-tortured slave, in 12 Years a Slave. Her performance garnered the Oscar, a BAFTA award, a Screen Actors Guild award and a multitude of other accolades.

Beyond that, Nyong’o is a versatile theater actress. While at Yale, she appeared in several productions, including William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Nyong’o’s skills earned her Yale’s Herschel Williams Prize for having “outstanding ability.” Her current film is Non-Stop, an action-thriller that’s currently in theaters. It is a complete departure from Patsey, and definitely highlights Nyong’o’s other acting chops.

2. She has impeccable style.

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There are few starlets that dazzle as brightly as Nyong’o. Fashionistas wait with bated breath to see what hue, designer, and style gown Nyong’o will don to red carpet events. During awards season, Nyong’o slayed every color in the rainbow, and she managed to make it look natural.

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She’s also mastered the effortlessly-chic look. Her appearance in cropped separates at the ESSENCE Women in Hollywood luncheon and fitted purple jumpsuit at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show the flexibility she has in her wardrobe. Nyong’o’s Instagram keeps us pining for her fashion sense. We can’t wait to see what she adorns next.

Related: Lupita Nyong’o Stuns In Essence Magazine

3. Lupita recognizes the importance of her success.

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Colorism is real, and it has an impact on darker-complexioned women. As we see in the Bill Duke-produced documentary Dark Girls, colorism influences everything from hiring practices to dating preferences, and it leaves many women of color with gaping wounds.

Hollywood is one of the many spaces where darker-complexioned women are often shut out. There are few roles for all actresses of color, but complexion preferences make it even more difficult for women with hues like Lupita’s. Yet, her ebony hue has been praised. She’s been embraced by those that often reject other women that look like her.

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Lupita recognizes that her experience isn’t normal. In an acceptance speech at ESSENCE’s Women in Hollywood luncheon, she spoke of feeling uncomfortable in her skin when she was a child. She said that she prayed to God to be lighter, but seeing Alek Wek gave her hope. Here’s an excerpt:

And then … Alek Wek. A celebrated model, she was dark as night, she was on all of the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was. Even Oprah called her beautiful and that made it a fact. I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me, as beautiful. My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome and all of a sudden Oprah was telling me it wasn’t. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn’t help but bloom inside of me, when I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny.

Lupita hopes to be a light as Alek Wek was for her. She ended her speech with:

And so I hope that my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside.

There is no shade to that beauty.

How beautiful is that?

4. She embraces other women of color.

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Hollywood often pits women of color against each other. In multiple interviews, actress Gabrielle Union has spoken of the competitiveness that creates rivalries, and why this turned her into a “mean girl.” Lupita doesn’t seem to have inherited that trait. She’s spoken of how Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg changed her life with their performances in The Color Purple. She’s also name-checked Alfre Woodard, Alek Wek and other black women in her multiple acceptance speeches.

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Beyond that, she took several photographs with other black women actresses at the ESSENCE luncheon. There’s a gorgeous photo circulating of Lupita, Nicole Beharie of Sleepy Hollow, and Samira Wiley and Danielle Brooks of Orange is the New Black posing in cropped separates at the ESSENCE luncheon. It’s a showing of sisterhood that fills us with delight.

5. Lupita is controlling her narrative.

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The public knows exactly what Lupita wants us to know, and she’s keeping it that way. In a celeb-obsessed culture where stars are rarely granted privacy, Lupita has successfully kept the world at arm’s length. We don’t know much about her life outside of acting, and that isn’t accidental. Lupita is controlling her narrative. Lupita’s profile in New York Magazine’s states:

She doesn’t want to talk about her morning routine, doesn’t want to talk about her father’s politics, and doesn’t want to pull back the curtain on what meetings with her stylist are like. “I don’t know why, but I like to keep that part of it very intimate and very small.” From acceptance speech to talk show, she tends to repeat the same stories, as charming as they are (“I said, ‘Daddy, do you know Brad Pitt? I’m going to be in a movie with him!’ And he said, ‘I don’t know him personally, but I’m glad you got a job.’ ”). Her official Twitter account notes that it’s “run by Team Lupita”; tweets directly from her (marked “LN”) are few and far between. Once at the museum, she appreciates a quote about Gaultier that mentions his “wit and irreverence” (“That’s my kind of guy”), but when we get to the room of bondage-­inspired clothing—arguably Gaultier’s wittiest and most irreverent work—she clams up.

Lupita, like Beyoncé, has managed to control her narrative. She’s mastered the art of giving enough to keep interest, while retaining most of her life for herself. It’s a rare luxury in our current moment, and I love it.

Here’s hoping Lupita’s career is one for the ages.

 

What do you love most about Lupita Nyong’o?

 

Images courtesy of Getty and Instagram