Lupita Nyong’o Says Losing Kenyan Accent for Hollywood Roles ‘Felt Like Betrayal’ and ‘I Cried Many Nights to Sleep’ Not Feeling ‘Like Myself’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director Lupita Nyong’o had to lose her Kenyan accent in order to become an American actor and take on different Hollywood roles, and she said during a recent episode of the “What Now?
With Trevor Noah” podcast that it “felt like a betrayal” to herself when she made that decision. The Oscar winner was born in Mexico but spent her childhood in Kenya.
She attended Yale School of Drama in the U.S. before breaking big in Hollywood. “The first permission I gave myself to change my accent or allow my accent to transform was going to drama school,” Nyong’o said (via Entertainment Weekly). “I went to drama school because I didn’t want to just be an instinctive actor.
I wanted to understand my instrument. I wanted to know what I was good at, what I was not good at, and work on the things that I wasn’t good at.
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