Lupita Nyong'o

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o is a multi-talented actress, author, producer and director who has taken Hollywood by storm! Born in Mexico to Kenyan parents, Nyong'o is an inspiration to us all. Before making her breakthrough in Hollywood, Nyong'o worked as a production assistant and then returned to Kenya to star in the critically acclaimed television series Shuga (2009-2012). Nyong'o's talents don't end there though - she also wrote, produced and directed the documentary In My Genes (2009), earned a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and made her Broadway debut as a teenage orphan in Eclipsed (2015). Nyong'o's breakthrough came with her role as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave (2013), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - making her the first Kenyan and Mexican actress to do so! Nyong'o's career has only continued to soar from there. She went on to take on a motion capture role as Maz Kanata in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (2015-2019), a voice role as Raksha in The Jungle Book (2016) and a starring role in Jordan Peele's horror film Us (2019). In addition, she has narrated the Discovery Channel docu-series Serengeti (2019) and written a New York Times best-selling children's book Sulwe (2019). Not only is Nyong'o incredibly talented, she's also incredibly beautiful - People named her the most beautiful woman in 2014! Furthermore, she is a vocal advocate for historic preservation, sexual harassment prevention, women's rights and animal rights. It's no wonder she was named one of Forbes' "50 Most Powerful Women" in 2020. As if the above wasn't enough, Nyong'o has also made us laugh with her great sense of humour - she once joked that if she could be any animal, she'd be "a giraffe, because they are tall, elegant and have great eyesight - so I could keep an eye on everything!"