Lupita Nyong’o Says Hollywood Only Offered Her Slave Roles After Her Oscar Win

Lupita Nyong’o is speaking honestly about what happened to her career after she won her first Oscar, and her story shows how narrow Hollywood can be for dark-skinned African actors.

She said that even after winning one of the biggest awards in film, the roles she was offered did not change the way she expected. Instead of getting chances to lead new stories, she continued receiving scripts tied to slavery.

As she explained, “After I won the Academy Award, you’d think, ‘I’m gonna get lead roles here and there.’ [They’re like], ‘Oh, Lupita, we’d like you to play another movie where you’re a slave but this time you’re on a slave ship.’”

Nyong’o said that these offers came for months. She also noticed that some writers and online commentators questioned her future in the industry. She shared that people were already asking if her career had peaked.

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

After the awards season for 12 Years a Slave, she earned major attention. She received nominations from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs and won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress made her the first Kenyan actor to win an Oscar and only the sixth Black actress to take home that award. Her blue Prada dress from that night also became one of the most talked-about looks in red carpet history.

But even with that success, she wanted more than roles tied to her appearance. Her first major project after the Oscars was Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She played Maz Kanata through motion-capture, a role she chose partly because it allowed her to escape being judged by how she looked on screen. Nearly a decade later, she continues to expand her range, and she will appear in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey, set for release in 2026.

Nyong’o says she is committed to fighting harmful stereotypes, even if it means working less. She shared, “I’d like to be a joyful warrior for changing the paradigms of what it means to be African and if that means 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.”

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