Lupita Nyong'o Recalls Type of Roles She Was Offered After Winning Her Oscar

Lupita Nyong’o is bringing attention to a matter with casting.

The 42-year-old actress opened up in a recent interview about the roles she was being offered after she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2014 for her work in 12 Years a Slave, which also won Best Picture and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) that year.

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“It really did set the paces for everything I’ve done since,” she shared with musician Angélique Kidjo during a recent interview on CNN Inside Africa. “But you know what’s interesting is that, after I won that Academy Award, you’d think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get lead roles here and there.’ [Instead, it was], ‘Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to play another movie where you’re a slave, but this time you’re on a slave ship.’ Those are the kind of offers I was getting in the months after winning my Academy Award.”

She said it was a “very tender time” and she had to ignore headlines that would extrapolate her Hollywood trajectory.

“There were think pieces about: ‘Is this the beginning and end of this dark-skinned Black African woman’s career?’” Lupita said. “I had to deafen myself to all those pontificators because, at the end of the day, I’m not a theory; I’m an actual person.”

The actress adds that she hopes to broaden the horizons for African storytelling in the industry.

“I like to be a joyful warrior for changing the paradigms of what it means to be African,” she said. “If that means that I work one job less a year to ensure that I’m not perpetuating the stereotypes that are expected of people from my continent, then let me do that.”

Another Black actress who has been vocal about finding work after winning an Oscar – Halle Berry, who has called out The Academy for still not having another Black Best Actress winner since her.

If you didn’t know, Lupita is set to star in Christopher Nolan‘s next star-studded movie!