Lupita Nyong’o graces the cover of Vogue magazine for the first time ever and speaks out in an interview on a variety of topics, including her red carpet appearances which have been so noteworthy. The actress who an Oscar for her searing performance in ’12 Years a Slave’ along with accolades for her numerous awards season fashion successes has achieved yet another honor.
The 31-year-old Kenyan actress was named People magazine’s Most Beautiful Woman earlier this year. Long declared a fashion icon since the awards season which saw her take home numerous awards from the Oscar to the SAG and the Golden Globe and many more, she has now clinched her first Vogue magazine cover. This further underscores how she has risen to fame both as a critically acclaimed actress and as a style icon who is also a brand ambassador for Lancôme Paris.
She said of her new association with the company in her Vogue interview, “I felt how valuable and vital such representation is.”
Lupita Nyong’o is also one of few black women over the years to cover the magazine and as such, that too is valuable representation. And it has all happened so quickly as she herself is the first to acknowledge. She told Vogue, “It just feels like the entertainment industry exploded into my life. People who seemed so distant all of a sudden were right in front of me and recognizing me — before I recognized them!”
She also revealed that being famous has had some getting used to, saying, “For a split second, I looked behind me to see who they were flashing at — and it was me! That was, I think, the beginning of the end of my anonymity.”
The article notes she did more than 60 appearances in total during the five-month-long awards season, of which she said, “Everyone said, ‘Brace yourself, Lupita! Keep a granola bar in that clutch of yours!’ I didn’t really understand what they meant, and it was only once it was past that I realized that my body had been holding on by a thread to get through this very intense experience.”
She went on to elaborate, saying, “Nothing can prepare you for award season. The red carpet feels like a war zone, except you cannot fly or fight; you just have to stand there and take it.”
Casual readers of her words may lash out, as they have at other celebrities who have drawn such parallels to war, but it’s clear that she is not implying that she is experiencing anything like the intensity of actual warfare. She does, after all, use a simile, a figure of expression. But in this day and age of instantaneous reactions — often in the 140 characters or less of Twitter — such nuances are sadly lost.
She also spoke about the movie that launched her international stardom, ’12 Years a Slave,’ directed by Steve McQueen from Solomon Northrup’s 19th century memoir of the same title. She said, “I was really nervous about seeing myself, because it had been such a profound experience in all ways. I remember it being one of the most joyful times in my life — and also one of the most sorrowful. I didn’t want my experience to be a vain one.”
She went on to speak of the emotional impact: “But I will say that when I watched it, my heartstrings were pulled so tight for Solomon that I couldn’t go into the ego trip. I cried — I mean, I was inconsolable. I wept for an hour after the movie.”
As for her winning moment at the Oscars, she said, “All I could think was ‘Don’t fall on those stairs,’ because it’s not cute if you follow Jennifer Lawrence — it’s not cute if you’re the second one!”
She went on to reflect upon her emotionally powerful and tearful speech as she accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, she said, “People are still filling me in on what happened after. My mother says I cried during the speech; I don’t believe her.”
There’s much more to the interview along with a gorgeous photo spread by Mikael Jansson. You can see Lupita Nyong’o's Vogue magazine cover and all the pictures here.
Pictures: PR Photos
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/QvDUpBKmrXs/
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