We Need to Talk About Lupita

It seems like Lupita Nyong’o has been everywhere in the past few months, and with fantastic results.  Ms. Nyong’o, who made her screen debut last year in the sensational 12 Years a Slave went on to win an Academy Award and become the “next big thing” in Hollywood.  Everyone from Emma Thompson to Jennifer Lawrence was in love with her.  She was in the famous Hollywood selfie, and has become a favorite of bloggers and critics everywhere (I’m a fan, even if I’m not 100% certain that she deserved that Oscar…we’ll get there in a few weeks when we handle the 2013 OVP…and cannot wait for what’s next).

But there’s been a large amount of press regarding Ms. Nyong’o’s lack of projects since her Oscar win.  Though she appeared in the Liam Neeson blockbuster Non-Stop at the beginning of the year, I believe production had pretty much wrapped on 12 Years a Slave when she was in that film, and it’s a very small role anyway.  Much speculation has been around whether Nyong’o hasn’t been cast in films since her win was to do with her race, with some claiming that Nyong’o wasn’t getting the benefit from an awards season run that white women such as Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie, Rooney Mara, and Shailene Woodley recently enjoyed.

The problem for all of this speculation, which was repeatedly heralded as fact rather than speculation, is that in the past few weeks we’ve received some evidence that perhaps Nyong’o was just being choosy about her parts rather than saying yes to everything.  I’m not going to say that there hasn’t been racism levied toward Nyong’o (I do think that it took a while for her to confirm her next project, particularly considering someone like, say, Robbie, already had three films and a franchise lined up before Nyong’o announced her next move).  But I do think that the press seemed a bit easy to chastise Hollywood here.

Look at what has happened in the mere few months since Nyong’o became an awards darling and now.  She has modelling contracts with Miu Miu and Lancome.  She has made press constantly for her distinctive fashion sense.  And she has now signed on to two potentially significant film projects.  The first and the one that gained the most press was her being cast in the Star Wars Episode VII movie, which will give her an international fame that almost no other franchise could promise.  The second project was her being cast in the lead role in an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s award-winning novel Americanah, which will be produced by Brad Pitt (who produced her in 12 Years a Slave, which won them both Oscars), and could be yet another awards play on her part.

Looking at these past few months, it does appear that we may have had a knee-jerk reaction to Nyong’o’s lack of casting.  It seems instead that she’s learned a thing or two from some of Oscar’s past winning women who jumped too quickly into every single project that came their way such as Jennifer Hudson, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, and Reese Witherspoon.  These women as a result of making the most financially of their success chose to be cast in movies that were either A) terrible or B) they were horribly miscast for.  In recent years, Oscar-winning actresses have seemingly been smarter about the decisions they’ve made post their win.  Some have seen how quickly the public can turn and are being choosy.  Sandra Bullock followed her Oscar win with a two-year gap and then another two-year gap from cinema.  In the process, she appeared in only three films, but impressively two of those films were Best Picture nominees and the third was a critically-acclaimed comic blockbuster. 

Bullock’s not the only one.  Jennifer Lawrence made the most of her first Oscar nomination, striking a brilliant balance between high profile franchise pictures (The Hunger Games, X-Men) and prestige films (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), and has enjoyed great press, multiple hits, and an Oscar for her choosiness.  Shailene Woodley has been equally smart with her post-Descendants career, with movies like Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars proving she knows how to find a lasting balance in cinema.  Lupita Nyong’o looks to understand that you need that balance for the public not to tire of you.  No one wants to be the next Mira Sorvino.

So while I do believe that Hollywood has a long way to go in understanding diversity and finding a way to feature it more aptly in its movies, I do think that the reactions to Nyong’o’s lack of casting may have been a bit premature.  In this age of constant access to everything and devouring of celebrity, discernment is a wildly undervalued virtue.  And thankfully for those of us who want Nyong’o to not be a flash-in-the-pan but instead an actress with a long future, it appears the talented actress has this quality.