Lupita Nyong'o

"Hunger is a defining issue for our world and climate change is worsening the problem. We must work to change this dynamic."

"Its because of the prevalence of whiteness, Eurocentric standards of beauty that we experience this. You know? And it is subconscious. Colorism is the daughter of racism. But sometimes it seems like racism has had amnesia (laughter). You know? And so thats why I wrote this - to hopefully bring it to the fore and people can address it."

"...I turned down a few projects to pursue this one. I knew there was a sense of what was expected of me, but this play felt so important to me that I had to do it, expectations be damned.”"

"“To me it felt like a question about our value system in this culture, the ways we define success for ourselves as well as others,”"

"My default is not to feel unwelcome. My default is to seek welcome."

"“I like to play women who are in contrast to me. I think that’s how I look at it: What aspect of this character offers me a chance to explore something new about my humanity?”"

"I find a lot of gratitude in my first years on this planet because having to identify - or having to not rely on how I look like to seduce or to get by in life really meant that I had to cultivate other aspects of myself - my personality, my character - and get a sense of self-worth from something other than people complimenting what I look like. And now, after that, I relish in the compliment. But I do know that external beauty will fade. And hopefully, I have cultivated and I continue to cultivate enough internal beauty to sustain me through the years when I am not such a hot pick."

"Women’s issues are human issues. Hunger is a human issue and therefore hunger is a women’s issue."

"“There are tons of Black women completely capable and are darn good at that,”"

"I definitely surprise myself with how much of a warrior spirit I have sometimes, because I think that politically, socially, and culturally there are wars to be fought."

"“It was so nice to have someone embrace that and encourage it, because I never knew that I would start my career and that would be called for. So, it was just really lovely to bring my full self to this without any sort of pretense,”"

"“As an African woman, I am wary of the trap of telling a single story… the chance to appear in Eclipsed after winning an Oscar was an opportunity to share in the incredible (and too rare) freedom of playing a fully rendered African woman.”"