Why Lupita Nyong'o Decided to 'Return' to Her Kenyan Accent After Masking It as Young Actress: 'Being an African Is Enough'

Lupita Nyong'o is opening up about embracing every part of her identity. 

On the first episode of her new podcast Mind Your Own, the Oscar winner, 41, recalls years of having “a complicated relationship with the way I speak.”

Nyong'o, who was born in Mexico, raised primarily in Nairobi, Kenya, and has lived in the U.S. for two decades, said that “in order to create this podcast, I had to get very comfortable with my voice.” Although she embraced her African accent while at Massachusetts' Hampshire College, things changed when she joined the Yale School of Drama to pursue acting. 

“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,” the Wild Robot star explained, “because obviously I didn't know very many people in movies and television with Kenyan accents. There was just no market for that.” 

Committing to multiple voice lessons a week to master sounding like an American paid off when a casting director was surprised to learn she was from Kenya. “She said, ‘Oh my goodness, you don't have an accent.’ And I was at once so elated and also so crushed. I had ridden myself of myself, kind of.”

Before starting the press tour for 2014's 12 Years a Slave, the feature film debut she booked just after graduating from Yale, Nyong'o said she called her publicists. "I said, ‘I've decided that from tomorrow I am going to return to my original accent. I want to send a message that being an African is enough.’ They had never heard me speak in a Kenyan accent.”

The actress’ mother backed up that decision, she recalled. “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.”

Nyong'o added, “I guess this accent is called Lupita! I don’t know who could claim it but me.”

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Nyong'o has since used her distinct voice in multiple projects, including narrating documentaries and playing Maz Kanata in the Star Wars franchise and the titular role in The Wild Robot (in theaters Sept. 27).

Lemonada Media’s Mind Your Own "is about the personal, intimate, individual and quirky stories that give light to who we are as Africans today,” as the A Quiet Place: Day One actress wrote on Instagram, where she shared the podcast’s trailer on Sept. 5. 

The Wild Robot, also featuring the voices of Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Catherine O’Hara and Mark Hamill, is in theaters Sept. 27.