Cool Details About Lupita Nyong'o

Lupita Nyong'o was just five years old when she fell in love with acting thanks to one particular film. "What actually did it for me was watching 'The Color Purple,'" she told Vogue. "When I saw Whoopi Goldberg and she looked like me, I was like, 'Oh, I can do this.'" Goldberg wasn't the only

Lupita Nyong'o was just five years old when she fell in love with acting thanks to one particular film. "What actually did it for me was watching 'The Color Purple,'" she told Vogue. "When I saw Whoopi Goldberg and she looked like me, I was like, 'Oh, I can do this.'" Goldberg wasn't the only A-lister that would influence her career path, however. Jump to 2005 when the aspiring actor had her first on-set experience and was reprimanded, then inspired by Ralph Fiennes.

As Nyong'o told the Daily Beast, she was in Kenya on her first summer holiday from studying at Massachusetts' Hampshire College and learned "The Constant Gardener" was filming in her area. A friend introduced her to the production team, per Vogue, and she was hired as a production assistant. In her role, she worked directly with Fiennes and asked him loads of questions, which he answered kindly, until he didn't. "At one point, though, he just said, 'Lupita, give me my space,'" she told Rhapsody in 2015 (via Us Weekly). 

With that same honesty, he also gave her life-changing advice. "Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me," Nyong'o once gushed, per Express. That's because, when she asked him for advice on being an actor, "He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do — only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'" And so she did.

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