Lupita Nyong’o makes debut in Hollywood alongside Brad Pitt

Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o has made her Hollywood debut, acting alongside award winning actor Brad Pitt in the movie 12 Years a Slave.

The movie is about slavery and Lupita acts as Patesy, one of the slave girls.

Born in Mexico and raised in Kenya, Lupita is the daughter of Kisumu senator Anyang’ Nyong’o.

Lupita acts with some of the big names in the industry, including Pitt, who is also the producer of the movie set to be released in October. It also features Benedict Cumberbatch and actress Alfre Woodard.

The first trailer made its debut online this week and the Kenyan actress is seen working on a plantation picking cotton with other slaves and at one point coming to the defense of the main character, Solomon Northup, acted by UK-based Chiwetel Ejiofor.

It’s a movie adapted from the autobiography by Solomon Northup, who was a free man but was lured to a well-paying job in the US, kidnapped and sold as a slave in Washington DC in 1841.

He worked on plantations in Louisiana, where he met Canadian carpenter Bass — acted by Pitt. The movie tells the story of how Solomon, his family in Canada and how he ended up being a slave.

With the help of Bass, Solomon is able to send word to his wife who goes to court, leading to his freedom, 12 years after he had been sold and worked as a slave in the cruel plantation owned by Edwin Epps, acted by Michael Fassbender.

The movie is directed by 44-year-old Steve McQueen, a London-based filmmaker.

McQueen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), in 2011 for his contribution to the visual arts.

Slavery is a difficult subject to explore and there are not that many movies on it. There are few that have made it to the big screen and been successful, movies like Amistad and Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino.

Lupita made her mark as an actress when she acted as Ayira, a vivacious college student who loved the high-life, in season one of award-winning MTV drama series Shuga, in 2009.

She makes a brief appearance in the second season – Shuga: Love, Sex, Money, where she was also a co-director.

Awareness

Shuga premiered in November 2009 as part of a multimedia campaign to create awareness on responsible sexual behaviour and HIV.

Her other work includes the documentary In My Genes which she wrote, directed and produced. It tells the story of people living with albinism in Kenya.

She has worked in the production sets of different movies including the Kenyan-filmed Constant Gardener.

She graduated with a degree in Film and African Studies from Hampshire College, Massachusetts.

Besides Lupita’s breakthrough in the movie world, another Kenyan is also making major strikes in the lucrative global modelling business.

Kenyan-born model Malaika Firth became the first black model to be cast by Italian fashion house Prada in two decades.

The 19-year-old was unveiled in a new advertising campaign, where she features with popular models Christy Burlington and Chinese model Fei Fei Sun.

She became the first black model to be cast by the fashion house since Naomi Campbell in 1994. Raised in the UK she still has family in Kenya where she comes to visit often.

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