Key Takeaways
- Lupita Nyong’o credits Whoopi Goldberg’s film career with helping her imagine a future in Hollywood.
- She shared these reflections while discussing her upcoming appearance in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
- The Black Panther star is set to portray both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra in the epic action film.
Whoopi Goldberg walked so stars like Lupita Nyong'o could run. On Thursday (July 9) morning, the Kenyan-Mexican actress opened up about how seeing the Sister Act star across several movies helped her imagine a future for herself as an actor.
Speaking with Who What Wear ahead of The Odyssey hitting theaters next Friday (July 17), Lupita said the options she saw for herself were “very narrow,” given that she was the daughter of a Kenyan professor-turned-politician and a public health advocate. “I come from a very different world,” she told the publication’s Michelle Ruiz, before admitting, “I had internalized that women were secretaries and businesswomen."
What Lupita couldn’t see for herself at the time, her mother, Dorothy Nyong'o, evidently could, having signed her up for “public speaking, improv, and poetry recitation classes.” The Black Panther actor later recalled seeing Goldberg in “more than one movie,” which made her go, “Wait, you could do this?”
“[Especially] because she was dark-skinned, I really took note of her,” Lupita added. "I feel very honored to be anybody's Whoopi."
Whoopi Goldberg’s blueprint and what to know about Lupita Nyong’o’s ‘The Odyssey’ role
It obviously goes without saying, but Goldberg is one of the many entertainers who helped lay the blueprint for Black women in entertainment. She became the first woman of color to reach EGOT status — winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — thanks to her self-titled Broadway show in the ‘80s, her phenomenal work in 1990’s Ghost, and later keeping us entertained day after day on “The View.”
As for Lupita, she’ll be playing both Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, and Clytemnestra in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. "I had the reassurance that I had done two roles before," she shared with Who What Wear, calling back to Jordan Peele’s Us.
She’s in great company, too, with Zendaya, Travis Scott, Anne Hathaway, and Matt Damon also among the cast. Watch the trailer below.