Lupita Nyong’o is Elle Magazine’s January Issue Cover Girl; Check Out Photos

        
Oscar winning actress, Lupita Nyongo is Elle Magazine’s January 2016 cover girl and in the interview, the Kenyan actress spoke on her aunt inspiring her to become an actress and also her journey as a woman with dark skin trying to act.


Continue to see more and more photos + Sneak peak from her interview below



Her aunt being the one who inspired her to act

“She was a stage actress and really the one who shepherded me onto the stage. I loved playing make-believe and I was basically one of these children who had a wild imagination and didn’t necessarily think logically. For a very long time I thought that a television was a display of a little village with little people in the TV performing these things, and no one could tell me otherwise. I really enjoyed that thought.”



The challenges of being a dark skinned actress


“If you turn on the television and you are not represented there, you become invisible to yourself. And there was very little of myself that I saw on TV, or in the movies that I was watching, or in magazines that were lying around in salons or the house. And so these are subconscious things. Yes, Western beauty standards are things that affect the entire world. And then what happens? You’re a society that doesn’t value darker skin.”

There was an ad that ran on TV about a woman dressed for a job interview and she got turned down. And then she used a specific cream and you see her skin get lighter and she gets the job. So that’s the message you are absorbing,

I tried out for roles for TV spots and things like that, and I remember hearing the words, “You are too dark for television,” so you hear those things; you are not walking around thinking you’re beautiful.”











Photos by: Kai Z Feng