Lupita Nyong’o Always Lands on Her Feet

Hermes top. Vex bottoms. Atsuko Kudo and Vex berets.

It’s mid-April and Lupita Nyong’o is wearing a pair of old Christmas socks. Granted, she had no real reason to not wear this particular pair of socks during the short flight from Las Vegas—where she’d just completed a two-day stint at the movie trade show CinemaCon—to Los Angeles for her Glamour global cover story interview. But as irony would have it, our meeting calls for her to take off her black platform ankle boots. “Of course,” she says. “My socks are so silly today.”

We’re spending the afternoon at CatCafe Lounge, a coffee shop where you can mingle with adoptable rescue cats, so the floors must be kept clean. The 41-year-old has arrived straight from the airport, looking every inch the fashion icon in skinny black jeans and a T-shirt, with Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and a Chanel 22 handbag. The Christmas socks never make an official appearance, however—instead we’re offered the option to spray our shoes with disinfectant.

The idea to meet at a cat café came from Nyong’o’s Glamour photo shoot a few weeks ago, where she brought her own rescue cat, a two-year-old orange tabby named Yoyo, on set for some portraits. “Today we actually learn if I like cats or just my cat,” she says as we walk into the open playroom. Cats of all colors and breeds are lounging in chairs, nuzzled in beds, and perched atop trees, all unperturbed by the Oscar winner who has quietly entered their space.

By the time we reach the outdoor patio space known as the catio, Nyong’o has greatly warmed up to our interview companions. “Maybe I do like cats,” she says after fawning over some kittens and roughhousing with a tabby named Archie before taking a seat in the lawn chair next to me.

It’s hard to believe, but Nyong’o says she’s historically afraid of cats. She overcame her fear when she was offered the lead role in A Quiet Place: Day One, the third film from the post-apocalyptic thriller franchise. Writer and producer John Krasinski approached Nyong’o for the project, looking to “breathe new life” into the series with a prequel origin story. Intrigued by Krasinski’s vision to “expand what the genre of horror can encompass,” Nyong’o was on board with everything—except for the fact that her character owns a cat. “I asked the director Michael Sarnoski if there was any way that we could change the animal,” she says. “I suggested an armadillo; he was not having it.”

Unwilling to give up the role, Nyong’o disclosed her fear and underwent “cat therapy” before shooting. The film, which hits theaters June 28, pushed her in new ways: “I had to learn a lot about myself, about the animal, before I was comfortable to do it,” she says.

In the movie Nyong’o plays Sam, a young woman on a day trip to New York City who gets caught in an alien invasion by extraterrestrial predators with no eyesight and enhanced hearing. Day One marks the actor’s third role in the horror genre, and I ask why she finds it so appealing. Her answer is simple: Scaring people is fun. But it also requires a lot of energy to sustain that level of intensity, which can be both “physically and mentally exhausting.”

Nyong’o relied on costar Joseph Quinn to help her stay present during scenes. He plays Eric, a stranger Sam encounters during the invasion; the two form a reluctant partnership in their journey to survival. “He listens and he’s very surprising,” Nyong’o says of Quinn. “You don’t know what he’s going to do next, and that makes it really exciting because you can’t prepare too much.”

Despite the action-filled trailer that was showcased at CinemaCon, Nyong’o says Sam is “not a warrior” and instead becomes a reluctant hero: “She is obviously thrust into a world that she has no preparation for.”

Sam’s story is not so dissimilar to Nyong’o’s own tale of success. This past March marks 10 years since she won the Oscar for best supporting actress for 12 Years a Slave, her very first feature film role. Nyong’o had just graduated from the Yale School of Drama when she was thrust into the alien world of Hollywood.

“We were prepared to be extras and little guest stars on TV shows before we would have our chance at any substantial role in the thing that we love to do,” she says of drama school. “But it did not at all prepare us for instant success. And that is an overwhelming experience.”

What goes through one’s mind before winning an Academy Award? When Christoph Waltz held the envelope containing the winner for best supporting actress, Nyong’o manifested her name in the silence that follows “and the Oscar goes to….”

“I was in my head, Please say Lupita, please say Lupita,” she says. “And then he said it.”

At first Nyong’o didn’t register that her name had been called—she thought she’d heard herself saying it. “My brother hit me on the back and screamed,” she says. Then the room erupted.

Nyong’o speaks about the moment with the same joy and reverence that was palpable in her acceptance speech. But even after all these years, I can still detect an air of disbelief—as if she can’t believe it actually happened. I ask Nyong’o point-blank if she’d thought she was going to win that night, and I’m met with a resounding “No!”

“I didn’t think I was not going to win,” she reasons. “I hoped I would win. How could I? It was my first film. I had absolutely no expectation; I cannot stress that enough.”

The fact that this memory has stayed a happy one is a testament to Nyong’o’s ability to block out any kind of noise or distractions. The price of newfound stardom is collected in the form of internet discourse and tabloid gossip, two things Nyong’o was suddenly at the center of. She was hailed as a style star. She was pitted against fellow nominee Jennifer Lawrence. She was rumored to be dating Jared Leto. All these things threatened to bring the mounting pressure of her position crumbling down.

“I paid no attention,” she says of the gossip. “I actually deafened my ears to all the discourse about the awards because I was going through so many firsts. The red carpet was new, everything was new to me.”

She’s still friends with Leto (“I can hit him up about things; we see each other, and it’s always a warm experience”), but she “didn’t love” the romance rumors that plagued their friendship. “It was drawing attention away from the work,” she says. “I didn’t want that sort of attention. I didn’t want all that chatter to deter from the joy I was having becoming his friend.”

Being a public figure is something she’s reflected on over the years. She likes the positive ways she can use her platform: Her ascent came at a time when movements like Oscars So White, Me Too, and Black Lives Matter were at the forefront of culture. Nyong’o has been an outspoken voice for all three causes. “There’s been a lot of amplification of things that hadn’t really been talked about before, and I definitely have been a beneficiary of many of those movements,” she says. Despite “some moving” of the needle, Nyong’o says it’s “too soon to do a retrospective” on how the industry has progressed.

However, she isn’t afraid to admit there are things she finds irritating about her position. When I ask her to specify, she searches for the right words before answering me bluntly.

“Interviews,” she says, and I burst out laughing.

“You asked,” she adds with a shrug. “I have to be honest. I’m going to tell you.”

She clarifies that she doesn’t mean all interviews. She finds press junkets to be a “torture technique,” where “different people are being ferried in” to ask the same questions. “You have to give each one of them attention, focus, and an articulate answer that you just gave to the person before,” she says. “That’s irritating.”

Early in her career, Nyong’o says, she was burdened by wanting to make sure she was perfect—her word—for every encounter. Since then she has accepted the fact that she can’t give 100% every day. “These days I allow myself to be a human being,” she says. “I’ve just found a way of forgiving myself for not being perfect.”

As if on cue a cat saunters over to where we’re sitting and lets out a loud meow in agreement.

Nyong’o wants to beat the Los Angeles rush hour, so we agree to continue our chat on her car ride home. Before we leave she does some damage in the gift shop, where she picks up cat socks, a pin that says “Cat Mom,” and a cat laptop sticker. “I want everything that says cat. I can’t believe it,” she says, her arms full of merch.

“I hate shopping,” she says as she checks out at the register.

It’s a surprising admission, given her status as a bona fide fashion icon, but Nyong’o clarifies that it’s the act of shopping she doesn’t enjoy. She does, however, have a deep appreciation for fashion and dressing up. “I love red carpets. You get to be Cinderella for a night,” she says. “My life before the launch of my career did not involve a lot of ball gowns. Now I wear so many, and I love it.”

There’s a certain gown that cemented Nyong’o as a fashion It girl: the caped red Ralph Lauren dress she wore to the 2014 Golden Globes. It topped every best-dressed list—and launched one of the most talked-about red-carpet runs in history—but Nyong’o says there was some initial skepticism about the look.

“Publicists were a little bit nervous about it because it was so bold,” she says. “There’s a cape. I felt like a superhero in it. One of my publicists was so scared of it, and she was like, ‘Maybe it’s too much.’”

It was the first dress Nyong’o and her longtime stylist, Micaela Erlanger, tried on for the event. They explored other options, but the duo “kept dreaming” about the red Ralph Lauren, and Nyong’o followed her gut. “Purely because I liked it—my rule of thumb has always been, I only want to wear things that I like, that feel good to wear,” she says. “And that was one of those moments.”

Off the red carpet, Nyong’o considers herself to be an “efficient dresser.” She likes to procrastinate and is always “dressing up in a panic.” There isn’t anything she won’t wear—though she used to have a whole list. “Micaela somehow has worked in everything on that list so far,” she says. “I said I never wanted to wear bias cuts. I wore a bias cut yesterday.”

Lupita Nyong’o has called a lot of places home. She was born in Mexico, grew up in Kenya, and attended college in Massachusetts. When we hop into the back of her black SUV, we are taking her to her new home here in Los Angeles, where she moved in June of last year. Nyong’o had lived in Brooklyn for years, and I ask what prompted the change. “I wanted to move here for better weather and more space,” she says like a new Angelino.

She loves her neighborhood, but she’s not sold on the LA experience just yet. “It’s very hard to find the vibe and the rhythm, the community,” she admits. “I know fewer people here, so it’s a little bit socially awkward.” Now that she’s settled, she hopes to expand her network and make some new friends.

Community is important to Nyong’o, who was “a little eccentric” when she was a teenager. She didn’t conform to how people were supposed to dress and expressed herself by dyeing her hair green and making her own clothing. Her creativity was a deterrent for some of her friends’ parents, who considered Nyong’o to be a “bad influence.”

“I wasn’t some outcast, but I had friends,” she says. Her own parents supported her dream to become an actor, though her experimental look “exasperated” them, she says. Still, they allowed her to dress as she wanted “as long as my grades were up.”

I ask Nyong’o if she felt confident during that time, which solicits a great laugh. “No, I was not,” she insists, before sobering up. “I got teased a lot for being dark-skinned. I went to an all-girls school for elementary school, and then I switched to coed school when I was 12. So just when I was coming into myself and becoming aware of my sexuality, I was being teased a lot by boys for being dark. So I definitely wasn’t confident, but how I dealt with that was, I think I just developed my character to compensate.”

The colorism she experienced was the inspiration behind her children’s book Sulwe, a story about a young girl who wishes for her skin to be lighter and, with the help of some magic, learns to love who she is. Nyong’o says the book is “an autobiography”—but it seems her own magic came from a life-changing move back to Mexico. Nyong’o, who was born in Mexico City, was sent to live there for seven months to learn Spanish when she was 16.

“Mexicans really liked me as an anomaly, and they were really intrigued by what they thought was beautiful about me,” she says. “And so that was the first time that people would come up to me and say, ‘Wow, you’re so beautiful.’”

The attention came with some complications, especially when people wanted to touch her skin or her braids. “But the bottom line under all of that was, Wow, I’m having an aesthetic impact on these people,” she says. “That never happened.” When Nyong’o returned to Kenya to finish high school, she came back changed. “I felt stronger in myself. I felt more beautiful,” she says. “I’d gotten that validation in a way that I just hadn’t had before.”

Nyong’o doesn’t mind looking back on the past, but the future is something she prefers not to think about. To her, the future is “formless” and not something she can control. Instead she pours her energy into what’s in front of her right now, a mindset she learned to adopt after a particularly difficult stretch in her life.

“In the last few years, I’ve been confronted with death and loss in ways that have been very sobering,” she says. “I don’t really spend my time designing a 10-year plan, because I don’t know how long I’ve got.”

Heartbreak has a way of cracking you wide open, creating a chasm so deep it can swallow you whole. Last year Nyong’o found herself diving headfirst into the abyss when she announced her split from boyfriend Selema Masekela. In an Instagram post she opened up about her “season of heartbreak” caused by “a love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception.” It was a rare display of vulnerability from Nyong’o, who is notoriously private about her personal life.

Social media, she says, is often “a flex zone” of curated moments, and Nyong’o felt the need to challenge that. “I wanted to be honest,” she explains as we drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. “Honestly, the thought of having to update people one at a time was going to be harrowing. I had made the choice to share the relationship with the world, and I wanted to make the choice to share the end of it with the world.”

It wasn’t an easy decision. Nyong’o wrestled with the idea and wanted to give herself the space and time to grieve. “I knew that announcing it or sharing it with the world would mean there would be a reverb and I would have to deal with the onset of that,” she says. Her eyes shift to the view over my shoulder and she pauses. “Look at that.” Our car is traveling up the cliffside and the Pacific Ocean is spread out before us, vast and blue.

We stare in silence for a moment before she returns back to her thoughts. “There is a time to be open and there’s a time not to be, and I chose that time to be open,” she says. But don’t expect that level of transparency from her again: “I’m very happy with what I did, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to share that part of myself anymore.”

It’s as if Nyong’o is reading my mind—and issuing a gentle warning—about asking more questions about her personal life. There will be no discussion about the PDA photos from her Mexico vacation with actor Joshua Jackson, which lit up the internet in March. There is, however, a special someone Nyong’o loves talking about, the one who healed her heart and opened it back up to love: her cat, Yoyo.

Nyong’o credits Yoyo for pulling her out of what she describes as a “super-low” point in her breakup. Her heart was “severely broken”—so much so that her mother rushed to her side all the way from Kenya, and one of her best friends as well. “I was really having a hard time believing in joy,” she says. “I was flirting with depression. I wasn’t there yet, but I was flirting with it. And I had a voice say in my head, ‘Get a cat.’”

Nyong’o had fallen in love with the cat she worked with for A Quiet Place: Day One. She mentioned this to her friend, who made appointments at shelters and adoption centers the next day. At first Nyong’o wasn’t sold on the idea, but when she arrived at Best Friends Animal Society, she saw a sign. Literally. “There was a poster that said something like, ‘Not over your ex? Foster a cat,’” she says. “It was spot-on.”

The shelter paired her with Yoyo, and after two days of fostering, she knew: “This cat isn’t going anywhere,” she says. “I guess the best anecdote for when you feel poorly taken care of is to take care of something. And I took care of Yoyo and he pried my heart open.”

We’re nearing the end of our car ride, so I ask if she has any plans for the weekend. First on the agenda is sleep; everything else will come after. “I’m going to have a really chill weekend with nothing planned except for a meeting-a-friend-for-a-meal sort of thing,” she says.

Rest is something she’s trying harder to prioritize. Burnout, she’s learned, can push you to the brink. And when you finally break, the results can be “devastating.” Luckily she has the perfect coach to help her unwind. “My cat shows me how to relax,” she says. “He lies there all day. Every so often he’ll get up and he’ll do that cat stretch. And it’s so elegant and it’s so yummy, he reminds me to get up and stretch,” she says.

As the car pulls over to my drop-off location, I ask her a parting question. If you were an animal, which would you be: cat or dog?

“Definitely a cat,” she says. “People have told me I’m very feline in the past. And now that I have a cat, I understand.”

It reminds me of a conversation we had earlier. Cats, we’d decided, are much more nuanced than dogs; they are moody and unpredictable. They get jealous and vengeful. They want solitude yet crave attention. They can fall from great heights but recover and get back up.

“They’re like people,” I offered and she agreed.

“Yeah, they are. They’re like people.”

Ariana Yaptangco is Glamour's senior beauty editor. Follow her @arianayap

Photographer + Director: Adrienne Raquel, styling by Rachael Wang, hair by Vernon François, makeup by Nick Barose, manicure by Diem Truong, set design by Bette Adams, produced by Ilona Klaver, DP: Ricardo Pomares.

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Originally Appeared on Glamour

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