Lupita Nyong'o doesn't want to be asked any hard-hitting questions before she's eaten. She's chosen a swanky Spanish restaurant in Midtown East for dinner—and she's come with an appetite. So while we wait for shared appetizers of grilled artichokes and garlic shrimp, rather than rattle off a slew of answers on an empty stomach, she begins to dance in her seat.
She's wearing a colorful print dress by South African designer Thebe Magugu, and as she moves, she tells me all about her new obsession. “Oh, I'm in love,†she says, reenacting a moment from a recent dance class. “It's very new, but I'm very passionate about it.â€
The style of dance she's studying is called Gaga, a movement practice in which the instructor gives prompts for students to embody, like “Imagine the air is oil, and your body is gliding through it,†or “Now with your bottom half, imagine being heavy like lead.†She says it reminds her of acting class. “You move for an hour nonstop,†she says. “There are no mirrors, and you're with a group of people in pursuit of pleasure. It's kind of like when you were a child, and you moved not because it looked good, but because it felt good. It's a lot of fun, and it's a great way to move without any sort of judgment or destination.â€
Dress, Sportmax. Headpiece, Stephen Jones for Rahul Mishra. Pumps, Giuseppe Zanotti.
A local dance studio may seem like an odd place to find an Academy Award–winning actress, but Nyong'o says she's been “trying to go out more.†Over the past decade, her schedule has left little room for hobbies. Since her feature film debut in 2013's 12 Years a Slave, for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, she's appeared in a string of blockbusters, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Black Panther, Us, and A Quiet Place: Day One. This summer, she'll star in another major project—one so highly anticipated that advance tickets for opening weekend sold out in some theaters an entire year before its release.
The food has now arrived, and she digs her blue-manicured hand into her Chanel backpack to pull out her phone and snap a picture of the meal. (“I'm trying out this Beli app,†she says, where users can rate and review restaurants and upload photos of what they're eating.) After a few bites of food, she's finally ready to talk about the movie.
Dress, Chanel. Ring, Chanel High Jewelry.
The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's classic epic, will hit theaters on July 17. The cast, which includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Mia Goth, among others, is, Nyong'o says, “dizzying.†When her agents informed her that Nolan wanted to see her for a role, she admits that she “went in quite blind.†During their meeting, he gave her the script, and she read it in one sitting. She was immediately all in. “I mean, I was saying yes even before he told me what role it was.†Once signed on, she was excited to dive into the world of Homer. She had performed a few monologues from Greek mythology in drama school at Yale, but was unfamiliar with the source material.
“I really had no idea what The Odyssey was,†she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, snap, I don't know the first thing about this.' So it was a crash course. I picked up the books and read them immediately. I have this film to thank for my Greek mythological education.†And by “picked up the books,†she really means she read The Odyssey and listened to The Iliad, and for good reason. “Audra McDonald reads it,†she says by way of explanation, in between sips of hot lemon water. “It is the best audiobook I have ever listened to.â€
Gown, Carolina Herrera.
Nyong'o will play Helen of Troy, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, as well as Helen's sister, Clytemnestra. Helen, of course, plays a pivotal role in the Trojan War and is also widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world. “I was so deeply honored to be entrusted with the role,†Nyong'o says. “I mean, she is iconic. What more can I say?â€
Evidently, not much. During our conversation, she's careful not to divulge too many details about her character or the film as a whole, as Nolan has a reputation for wanting to maintain a sense of mystery around his films. But Nyong'o says she doesn't mind being tight-lipped. “I love it,†she says, smiling. “All you have to do is say nothing. I love being the holder of a secret that everybody wants to know.â€
She does, however, have fond memories of working with such a “prolific director.†“He has quite an enigmatic persona, but working with him was so accessible,†she says. “He's really great with actors. I felt supported. I felt challenged. And what I love most about his approach is that he really wants to know what the actors think. He really gives us the responsibility and the authority to advocate for our characters. You're very much a part of consultations about hair, makeup, wardrobe, all of that.â€
Dress, Chanel. Ring, Chanel High Jewelry.
For Nolan, Nyong'o was always his choice to play Helen of Troy, a role that required acting chops as much as physical beauty. “The strength and the poise were so important to the character of Helen. And Lupita makes it look effortless. I'm sure there's a tremendous amount of discipline and training that goes into projecting that kind of poise and feeling the emotion bubbling beneath the character, the layers of the character right there underneath. She's just an incredible person to work with, and I was absolutely desperate for her to do the part.â€
When asked what it means to portray “the face that launched a thousand ships,†she quickly dismisses the idea. “You can't perform beauty,†she says. “I want to know who a character is. What is beyond beauty? What is beyond looks? That's the thing about doing such a well-known text, which has been studied and interpreted and derived from. The research could be endless. The good thing about working with a writer like Chris is that it's on the page. The investigation starts with the pages you're given. That's what I based it on.â€
After her casting was announced, Nyong'o faced racist critiques about the decision to cast her as a Greek character. But, she reminds those who may have forgotten, “this is a mythological story.â€
“I'm very supportive of Chris's intention with it and with the version of this story that he is telling. Our cast is representative of the world. I'm not spending my time thinking of a defense. The criticism will exist whether I engage with it or not.†She elaborates on this thought at another point in the conversation, saying, “It's quite something to be a part of The Odyssey, because it is so grand. It spans worlds. So that's why the cast is what it is. We're occupying the epic narrative of our time.â€
Shawl, bra, briefs, Chanel.
Nyong'o has been in a reflective mood lately. The experience of being in The Odyssey serves as a full-circle moment. When she starred in 12 Years a Slave over a decade ago, she tells me, many people described the film as “an odyssey†because of its episodic nature. She was 29 years old when she portrayed the enslaved woman Patsey, and she thinks about the experience often. “I carry her pain with me, in a very beautiful way, not in a burdensome way,†she says. “I think it keeps me grounded to know what it costs for me to be here. It's because of that history.â€
After Nyong'o won her Oscar, though, she kept getting offers to play more enslaved women—a fact that she has said was “disappointing, but not surprising.†She acknowledges the obvious racial element, but also says that it points to a bigger problem that pervades Hollywood. “This is an industry where commerce is governing the art,†she says. “The commercial part of it is unimaginative. Something like Sinners will happen, and then every studio will look for its new vampire movie. So the lack of imagination exists anyhow, and then it's just exacerbated by the racial component.â€
For this reason, she's been deliberate about the roles she says yes to. “I struggle to make the strategic choice,†she says, preferring to be more “mindful†about her career decisions. She's reminded of one of her acting teachers, Ron Van Lieu, who always encouraged her to consider the kinds of stories she wants to tell, and she carries that objective with her from project to project. “Life is just too precious not to have intention. I don't know how to be otherwise. I don't think I could survive.â€
Dress, LaQuan Smith. Earring, Chanel High Jewelry.
The time surrounding her Oscar win was prickly for another reason. In 2014, she was diagnosed with fibroids. At the time, she decided to get a myomectomy, a procedure to remove them, but they came back, unbeknown to her. Though she was being checked on an annual basis, a decade after her surgery, she discovered that she had even more. “No alarm was sounded until I learned that I had 50,†she says. “Again, I was told, ‘You can either live with it or get another surgery.' And I thought to myself, ‘How has my fibroid burden changed, and the options you have for me have not? This doesn't sound right.'â€
Feeling a mix of agony and frustration at the lack of research and funding, she decided to go public with her diagnosis. “I thought to myself, ‘If I'm going through this, that means so many other people are going through this, too.'†She has recently partnered with the Foundation for Women's Health, and earlier this year launched the Make Fibroids Count campaign to fund a research grant in her name. “Just because something is common doesn't make it normal. How have we as women internalized the de-prioritization of our own pain, and what can we do to reverse that? I'm sounding the alarm for myself, because I have normalized my own pain for too long,†she says. “I needed to participate in seeing the change that I want to happen. The one thing I knew I could do, because this is my line of work, is storytelling. I can tell my story and then join forces with other people who care as much as I do.â€
Dress, Diotima. Earrings, Chanel High Jewelry. Mules, Giuseppe Zanotti.
But the decision to come forward and be so vulnerable with the world was not easy. “I feel like my intuitive voice gave me no choice,†she says. “I would rather not share my HIPAA-protected information. I would really rather not. But I also recognize the power of telling my story. When you tell your story, you heal. And when other people hear your story, you offer them healing, too. Speaking up has liberated me in so many ways, and I feel very rewarded by this work.â€
While growing up in Kenya, Nyong'o never imagined she would inspire so many on a global stage. She also never thought she would be able to make a living as an artist. “I didn't necessarily expect that would be something I was permitted to do, just coming from where I come from and what the options were growing up. It's such an incredible blessing to be able to do what I do for a living. I'm grateful every day that I get to do it, and I don't want to squander it.â€
When asked where she sees her career moving post-The Odyssey, she just hopes it continues to progress in new and interesting ways. “I hope that my career spans a very long time, and I want to be as vibrant as Amy Madigan. I want it to be long and storied and surprising.†And she'll carry an encouraging mantra with her along the way. “Go where you're loved,†she says. “I was talking to students at Yale yesterday, and the very teacher who put me on tape for 12 Years a Slave was interviewing me. She read out all the directors I've worked with, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, when you put it like that.…' And in that moment, I was reminded that I am loved. So I can't spend my time thinking about all the people who still don't love me. You'll find the representatives who believe in you, and you'll get on with it. I want to believe I'm built to last.â€
Lead Image: Shawl, bra, briefs, Chanel.
Hair by Vernon François for Olaplex; makeup by Nick Barose for Chanel Beauty; manicure by Bagir K; set design by Marla Weinhoff at 11th House Agency; produced by Alexey Galetskiy Productions.
This story appears in the Summer 2026 issue of ELLE.
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