Lupita Nyong’o’s Emotional Journey: Shedding Her Kenyan Accent for Hollywood Roles

Emotional Turmoil in Transforming Accent

Lupita Nyong’o recently opened up about the emotional turmoil she faced in her journey to transform her Kenyan accent for Hollywood roles, a process so challenging that she “cried many nights to sleep.”

Early Life and Background

The Oscar-winning actress, 41, is the daughter of Kenyan politician Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o. Born in Mexico, she was raised in Kenya from the age of three.

Journey at Yale School of Drama

During an appearance on the What Now? with Trevor Noah podcast, Nyong’o shared her experiences at the Yale School of Drama. “The first permission I gave myself to change my accent or allow my accent to transform was going to drama school,” she revealed.

Nyong’o attended drama school to hone her acting skills. “I wanted to understand my instrument and identify my strengths and weaknesses. One of the areas I struggled with was accents.”

Identity Crisis and Emotional Struggle

She described the heart-wrenching process of losing her East African accent as an identity crisis. “I didn’t know how to sound any other way than myself. It was a process filled with heartbreak and grief.”

Moreover, Nyong’o explained that learning an American accent felt like a betrayal of her roots. “It wasn’t just about the classroom; it was about becoming someone I wasn’t. Consequently, many nights, I cried myself to sleep.”

Achievements in Hollywood

Nyong’o won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 Years a Slave in 2013. Furthermore, she has since secured high-profile roles in Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Star Wars franchise, Jordan Peele’s Us, and Michael Sarnoski’s A Quiet Place: Day One. Currently, she can be heard voicing the title character in The Wild Robot.

Critical Acclaim

In a four-star review of The Wild Robot, The Independent’s film critic Clarisse Loughrey described it as “a beautiful union between Hollywood mainstream and the broader animation scene. It marries DreamWorks’s sentimentality with the thematic maturity of Studio Ghibli and Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon.”