Lupita Nyong’o on embracing her Kenyan accent
The Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyongó was not always confident about the way she speaks, and tried to hide it in her early career.
She opened up about her struggle to own and accept her Kenyan accent on the first episode of her podcast, Mind Your Own.
Reflecting on her journey, Lupita said that the process of launching her podcast forced her to get comfortable with her voice, and it “has not been easy.”
“I’ve long had a complicated relationship with the way I speak,” she said.
The actress spoke about her move from Undergraduate School to transitioning to work, and how she evolved during that period of time.
“When I showed up at the Yale School of Drama, I made this pact with myself that I would learn how to sound American in a way that would guarantee me a career in acting-because honestly, I didn’t know many people in movies or television with Kenyan accents, there was just no market for that.”
Lupita added: “Casting is unforgiving, it so hard to suspend people’s disbelief if they’ve seen something in you that they have an unconscious bias about… and I knew that Africa was the unknown element, and I didn’t want it in the room.”
But as she continued to learn the American accent in the hopes of having it become second nature for her, Lupita felt that she was losing herself.
And when she was cast for what would become her Oscar-winning role as Patsy on 12 Years A Slave– the actress did some hard thinking about her accent and the message she wanted to send to the world about its value.
“The truth is that at the end of the day, I never wanted to lose my authenticity. I called my reps and we had a conference call and said ‘I’ve decided that from tomorrow, I’m going to return to my original accent. I want to send a message that being an African is enough.’”
Lupita’s mother supported and encouraged her decision, which gave the actor comfort as the way she spoke had changed, even as she tried to reclaim her original Kenyan accent.
“ She said, ‘Your accent is representative of your life experience.’ That gave me solace, that an accent comes to being from your life…and just like skin and hair, it can change and it’s okay.”
The 41-year-old actress launched her podcast at the beginning of September.
“I created Mind Your Own because I was homesick and I wanted to hear stories from other Africans navigating more than one world that they consider home like me. It’s also for anybody who has ever felt alien in one way or another; for everyone considering what it really means to belong,” she wrote while announcing its premiere.
