Lupita Nyong'o

Women’s issues are human issues. Hunger is a human issue and therefore hunger is a women’s issue.

Hunger is a defining issue for our world and climate change is worsening the problem. We must work to change this dynamic.

I grew up with aunties that had their chests out, they fought the system in all sorts of ways, and in many ways rose to the top of their lines of work.

It was so nice to have someone embrace that and encourage it, because I never knew that I would start my career and that would be called for. So, it was just really lovely to bring my full self to this without any sort of pretense,

I think ultimately that mentality that you can be whatever you put your mind to, and that the world you want to see is worth fighting for, won over.

"...I turned down a few projects to pursue this one. I knew there was a sense of what was expected of me, but this play felt so important to me that I had to do it, expectations be damned.”

I was completely overwhelmed…The body registers stress, whether good or bad, in the same way. So if it’s super exciting or super traumatising, your body is in equal distress. Though I would choose excitement over trauma every day.

I definitely surprise myself with how much of a warrior spirit I have sometimes, because I think that politically, socially, and culturally there are wars to be fought.

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

I like to play women who are in contrast to me. I think that's how I look at it: What aspect of this character offers me a chance to explore something new about my humanity?

I find a lot of gratitude in my first years on this planet because having to identify - or having to not rely on how I look like to seduce or to get by in life really meant that I had to cultivate other aspects of myself - my personality, my character - and get a sense of self-worth from something other than people complimenting what I look like. And now, after that, I relish in the compliment. But I do know that external beauty will fade. And hopefully, I have cultivated and I continue to cultivate enough internal beauty to sustain me through the years when I am not such a hot pick.

It's because of the prevalence of whiteness, Eurocentric standards of beauty that we experience this. You know? And it is subconscious. Colorism is the daughter of racism. But sometimes it seems like racism has had amnesia (laughter). You know? And so that's why I wrote this - to hopefully bring it to the fore and people can address it.

There was so much joy in the making of this film, despite the fact that it’s about such a sad, traumatic experience…We all felt like we were part of something so real and so necessary. It was a joy to go on set every day and tell these real people’s story. Doing this movie, I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

My default is not to feel unwelcome. My default is to seek welcome.

There are tons of Black women completely capable and are darn good at that,