The breath taking Oscar winner is giving me life in the new July cover of VOGUE magazine.
Here's a few of the highlights of the story:
On her seemingly sudden stardom trajectory
“It just feels like
the entertainment industry exploded into my life. People who seemed so distant
all of a sudden were right in front of me and recognizing me—before I
recognized them!”
On her first paparazzi experience
“For a split second I
looked behind me to see who they were flashing at—and it was me! That was, I think, the beginning of the end
of my anonymity.”
On her prom dress
before graduating from an all-boys high school in Nairobi
“It was a velvet
miniskirt with a matching little top and an iridescent silver translucent
fabric that flowed to the ground,” she remembers. “It was kind of ridiculous,
but it was fabulous at the time.”
On her Pinterest board
she brought to her first meeting with stylist Micaela Erlanger
Bold color,
interesting print, interesting silhouette—simple but architectural and
feminine,” Erlanger remembers. “Elegance, but with a sense of humor.”
On their epic six-hour fittings
“It’s a job; it’s
work, you know! We’d just try, try, try, try, try, try, try. At first it was
very daunting, but I ended up really having fun with it.”
Their choices have run
the gamut from Christopher Kane and Sacai to custom Prada and Chanel Haute
Couture. Most times, she adds, “especially for the bigger awards, the dress let
me know it was going to be worn. It’s quite scary when you fall in love with a
dress, because it’s nothing to do with your brain. It’s like a gut reaction.”
On that epic Golden Globes dress
“We got goose bumps,” remembers [herstylist] of that fitting. “I told her, ‘This is going to be a game-changer.’ And it was.”
On her red carpet life
Before she embarked on her fashion marathon, “everyone said, ‘Brace yourself, Lupita! Keep a granola bar in that clutch of yours!’ ” she confides. “I didn’t really understand what they meant, and it was only once it was past that I realized that my body had been holding on by a thread to get through this very intense experience. Nothing can prepare you for awards season,” she continues. “The red carpet feels like a war zone, except you cannot fly or fight; you just have to stand there and take it.” She considers for a moment. “I hope they don’t make that the big quote!” she says, laughing. “Because that would be sad! Tell them not to do that!”
“My family is very close-knit,” she explains. “My aunt, who was an actor herself, would get all us children together to write and perform plays. I loved manipulating my parents’ emotions.”
On her journey to the Oscar
“I had already gotten the nomination, which was truly, truly astounding, and enough,” she remembers. “Even in my dreams of being an actor, my dream was not in the celebrity. My dream was in the work that I wanted to do.”
When her name was read out, the experience was, as she recalls, “very confusing, very numbing. I was just repeating my name in my head, so I didn’t know whether I had said my name or they had said my name! And then my little brother screamed, and time was suspended and it was just noise in my head.”
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