Lupita Nyong’o’s journey from Nairobi to Hollywood

Lupita at the 2014 Oscar Awards where she emerged Best Actress in Supporting role 12 Years A Slave.

What you need to know:

HOW I DID IT. On December 4, 2014, actress Lupita Nyong’o gave a key note address at the Massachusetts Conference for Women, in which she revealed in detail her struggle to make it to the top in an industry that did not mean much where she grew up in Nairobi, Kenya. Titled The Personal Investment in Following a Dream, here are excerpts.

My dream was to be an actor from when I was very little, but I didn’t always know it. Before I could call myself an actress I had a lot of work to do: I had to unchain myself from indecision, cut through the fear of going after my dream, jump over my own ego, allow myself to be vulnerable, and confront a great deal of Imposter Syndrome, which is the belief that you are not good enough for and don’t deserve what you have.

To the world, I have achieved the pinnacle of success in my field, and yet I still have the rest of my life to go. It is at this point that I have to constantly remind myself of how I got here: through hard work, daring to dream, and systematically slaying the dragons that are self-doubt, self-hate and self-denial. I must carry on my personal journey and dream more, dream again.

Getting there, step by step

1. Unchaining from indecision
The first step to becoming an actor was to choose it for myself. But finding out that I wanted to be an actor was made a little more difficult because I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, in the 80s when acting was just not a viable career path.

When I watched The Colour Purple and saw Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah in it, a seed was planted in my heart to be an actor, but I dared not water it in public. Back then, acting was not considered an honourable profession in Kenya, especially for a politician’s daughter.

I pursued acting opportunities in school all the same, and as long as it was extra-curricular and not my focus, I felt it was safe and acceptable. The expectation from the larger society kept me ashamed of the truth about what the desire of my heart really was. But, entertainment lawyer, botanist, archaeologist, nothing felt right though. By the time I got to undergrad, Hampshire College in the US, I was still looking for the “practical,” “viable” career path, the profitable type.

I went for the closest thing to acting, film studies, because I figured wanting to hold a camera was more serious than wanting to play in front of it. But I continued to act after school. And once that chapter was done, though I had learned a lot and had been passionate about my education, I did not yet feel like I was in the right gear of my life.

I moved back to Kenya in a state of personal crisis, still wondering what my life was to be about. I was disappointed that at 25, I was still feeling lost and unfocused. My indecision and self-denial were becoming healthy breeding grounds for fear.

There was no saving me from the agony of indecision until I stopped running away from myself and listened to myself.

I admitted it, first to myself and then out loud, that what I really wanted. Then, I got down to the most important work: figuring out what steps would get me to being the actor I wanted so badly to be. I had a plan of action, something to work towards: Getting into the Yale School of Drama for acting training.

2. CUTTING THROUGH FEAR
To go after my goal to attend the School of Drama meant that I would have to confront my fear of failure, of not being good enough. But we didn’t even have a theatre library in Kenya. As I boarded the plane to the US, there were naysayers in my head telling me I was crazy, that I shouldn’t even bother: over 900 people auditioned for 15 spots each year. And yet there was a part of me that knew I could do it, even when the part of me that said it was impossible was louder. Our dreams arise from our imaginations, they belong to us and we owe it to ourselves to try and realise them. To encourage myself, I wrote in my diary on August 23, 2008, “I have this dream and desire [to be an actor] and yet it dwarfs me – but it’s MY dream, God dammit – I made it up! How can what I dreamed up defeat ME?!”

3. JUMPING OVER EGO, EMBRACING VULNERABILITY
Then, I got in to Yale, this prestigious school where acting heavyweights like Meryl Streep and Angela Bassett had learned their craft (Meryl is so legendary at Yale that we referred to her just as The Streep). I was overjoyed.

I had to prove to the greater acts and to myself that I deserved to be there. I couldn’t afford to fail. And I had every intention to work hard and excel at everything I did. But I would very quickly learn that in acting school, it is the constant exposure to failure that frees you from the strongholds of the ego that allows you to embrace your vulnerability, which in turn allows you to surprise yourself in performance.
Without the possibility of being bad, you will never be extraordinary. And so I resolved to operate from a sense of self that was louder than my critic and faster than my worry. It is only in that space that you can truly be free and innovate.

4. CONFRONTING IMPOSTER SYNDROME
Right before I graduated, the opportunity to play Patsey was offered to me. After a rigorous audition period, when Steve McQueen, the director, called me to give me the part, I remember I sat down on the pavement overjoyed. But the saboteur in me would have me believe that my dream had come true too fast and that I was not prepared for it. I was suffering from typical Imposter Syndrome: a pattern of toxic thoughts that tell you how lucky you are to have everybody fooled that you are good at what you do up until now. This was to be my first film and judging by the story and the people involved, I knew it was no small potatoes. I was certain Steve had made a mistake, and that he would fire me any day now.

This was a real fear of mine. It kept me up at night – in fact, I did not have a good night’s rest from the day I got offered the role to the day I got wrapped on set. The solution is not to eradicate fear – that would be nice but fear does play a role in keeping us safe. The solution is to recognise fear with compassion and act inspite of it. That is what courage is after all; doing the thing you fear because what you are to gain is worth the risk. Playing Patsey in 12 Years A Slave was worth the risk.

Seven tools I offer to you today are:
1•Recognise and articulate your fear to yourself. Then look for what you love and articulate that to yourself and to others. Do so often and your love will grow stronger than your fear.

2•Reach out to your stretcher-bearers: The people who will remind you that you are not alone when your emotions get the better of you, remembering that “Our pain is when we perceive ourselves as separate” (Tara Brach).

3•Ask questions of yourself, for yourself, and listen out for the answers all around you. Take reading recommendations from people you respect.

4•Do not underestimate the power of writing your dreams and goals down. Right before I got cast in 12 Years, I was envisioning what kind of work I wanted to do. I wrote in my diary on May 4th 2012, that I wanted “To make meaningful films that affect change in people’s understanding of and commitment to the world we live in.” I also wrote that I wanted to visit New Orleans for at least a week. On May 13, I booked 12 Years A Slave and on June 6, I would be in Louisiana working on the film for five weeks.

5•Breathe. Meditate. Pray. Be still with your soul. There is a force within us that unites us, surrounds us, penetrates us and binds us together.

6•Go for it and always allow failure to be an option. No matter who we are or what stage of achievement we are at, I think that it is healthy to always have some perfection to work towards. It gives us perspective and something worth living another day for.

7•Finally, step forward and repeat it all: with each new step you take, with each new challenge you face, expect yourself to learn these lessons again and again.

About lupita
.Lupita Amondi Nyong’o is a Mexican-Kenyan actress and film director. She was born in Mexico on March 1, 1983 (age 31), to Dorothy Nyong’o, and Professor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, a Kenyan senator. She was, however, raised in Kenya but educated in USA. She read film studies at Hampshire College, Massachusetts and, after working as a production assistant on several films, graduated from Yale School of Drama. She has featured in 12 Years a Slave (2013) as a brutalized slave Patsey, Star Wars: Episode VII (2015), In My Genes (2009), and MTV’s award-winning drama series, Shuga (2009).

.When she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Sctress for her role in 12 Years a Slave (2013) in 2014, she became the first Kenyan to win an Oscar, the first African actress to win Best Supporting Actress and the first Mexican-born actress to win an Oscar.

. 2014 quote: Academy Award acceptance speech, closing remarks; “When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind every child that no matter where you are from, your dreams are valid.”