Lupita Nyong’o recently sat down with CNN’s Inside Africa for a candid interview where she opened up about how her 2014 Oscar win did not open up the doors she imagined it would.
The 42 year-old stepped into the acting scene after her breakout role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave in 2013. After winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Nyong’o thought the win would widen her net for lead roles but instead she says there was an attempt to typecast her.
“My winning an Academy Award came at the very start of my career,” Nyong’o said during an interview with CNN Africa. “It was for the first film I had ever done. So, it really did set the paces for everything I’ve done since. What’s very interesting is that after I won the Academy Award, you’d think like, ‘Oh, I’m going to get the lead roles here and there.’ But it’s ‘Oh, Lupita. We’d like you to do another movie where you’re a slave but this time you’re on a slave ship.’ Those are the kinds of offers [I was getting] in the months after winning my Academy Award.”
Nyong’o added that she refused to take roles that perpetuated stereotypes about Black and African women, and revealed that she was willing to work less.
“It was a very tender time,” she continued. “There is an expectation for you and your career. There were think pieces about is this the beginning or the end of this African woman’s career? I had to deafen myself to all those pontificators because at the end of the day I am not a theory. I am an actual person. I like to be a joyful warrior for changing the paradigms of what it means to be African. If that means I work one less job a year to ensure that I am not perpetuating these stereotypes that are expected of people from my content then let me do that.”
“I’ve always avoided making films about slavery.”
The conversation actors being typecasted has circulated for years. Adding to Nyong’o’s experience are actors such as Will Smith who said in a 2021 GQ interview, “I’ve always avoided making films about slavery.” He continued: “I didn’t want to show Black people in that light. I wanted to be a superhero.”
To date, Emancipation is the first and only movie Smith has done around slavery in 2022 out of his lengthy career.
Other examples of the Academy Awards rewarding slavery or maid adjacent roles include Cynthia Erivo, who received her first Oscar nomination for Harriet and Octavia Spencer who won an Oscar for being a resilient maidsin The Help. Viola Davis, who received an Oscar nomination for the film, has been vocal about regretting that role.
Nyong’o is rumored to star in Christopher Nolan‘s next star-studded movie, The Odyssey. Details around her role are still unknown.