Lupita Nyong’o: Using her voice for all the right reasons – wild or not
Voicing an animated film is freeing — no hair, no make up or cameras – but that didn’t stop Academy Award winning actor Lupita Nyong’o from giving her all in The Wild Robot.
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Lupita Nyong’o is not one to be a passenger on any project she signs up to.
The acclaimed actor, who won an Academy Award for her incredible performance in 12 Years A Slave, only signs on to roles she feels to the core.
“I don’t know how to stand by, I don’t know how,” Nyong’o told Insider.
“I only know how to use my whole self – and that is a strength and definitely a liability, because sometimes you really just want to phone it in and I just don’t know how.”
Nyong’o is prolific and varied in her work choices, from Hollywood to Broadway.
Her credits range from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to Star Wars, Us, The 355 and, most recently, A Quiet Place Day One.
Now, she’s voiced the character of robot supercomputing machine Roz, in Hollywood Dreamworks animation The Wild Robot.
It is directed by Chris Sanders of How To Train Your Dragon, The Croods and Lilo & Stitch fame. Sanders, too, is never a passenger, which worked perfectly as the pair fed off each other creatively.
“I loved working with Chris, because he gives his all too,” she said.
“He’s very open, he’s very porous, he’s so smart at what he does … it is like rocket science to me.
“What he does as a director of animation, he speaks their language and then somehow he spoke my language … he was able to give me notes that would open up new portals of my brain and I would have new ideas in such a way that I always felt like I had agency and that my contributions were additive and valued, and that is an incredible skill to have as a visionary such as him.”
It is easier not to be a passenger if you feel valued in what you’re putting your heart and soul into.
“What I’ve learned in the 10 years that I’ve been in this career is that I need to go where I’m loved and where I’m appreciated, where that quality in me is valued, because not everybody wants to hear the truth,” she said.
“And when you are in those situations, they are painful.
“So part of the process of taking on this project, especially because it takes years to make an animation, was me sitting with Chris having lengthy conversations to ensure that our approach to the work was complimentary and that he was indeed truly open to a collaborative experience.
“That was proved to me in my first recording session when I came in with copious notes and we spent like an hour, I think, before we even started recording … just listening to my thoughts and really considering them, metabolising them and then adjusting the script accordingly.”
Sanders is equally full of praise about working with Nyong’o.
“Lupita is one of the most, if not the most, ingenious and inventive and intelligent actors I’ve ever worked with,” he said.
“She was very careful about asking me a lot of questions before she said yes to this role. She wanted to make sure that we were going to be collaborative and that we were going to work together, and I would say that not only did we collaborate, but she really took the lead in keeping me honest about why Roz does this and why she does that, and she took this character apart bit by bit to understand how Roz works.”
This writer last spoke to Nyong’o for her film Little Monsters, directed by Australian Abe Forsythe and shot in Sydney.
During a lunch break on set of the zombie apocalyptic comedy movie, we crossed paths over a catering spread on set when we both reached for a helping of potato.
It is not a moment she remembered but one that has stuck with this writer.
“Who won, that is my question,” she laughed.
The lauded actor did, of course.
“And you’re a gentleman,” she said.
Nyong’o in person is every bit the movie star you see on screen. She is, however, down to earth, warm, intelligent and playful.
There is none of the diva antics you might find with others in the industry.
She is also strong, which she attributes to her mum, Dorothy.
“I had a great example in my mother,” she explained.
“One of the things that struck me about my mum growing up, (was) when I’d go to my friends’ houses, their parents would bend over backwards for us as kids and try to make us feel at home … they would cater to us.
“My mother was never that way and my mother was very comfortable in her own skin. She knew what she was comfortable with and what she wasn’t. She was always ready to say what she didn’t know and she was happy to admit that, and I learnt through that example.
“I saw her being honest and I think I took that on. I saw that she never apologised for the space that she occupied and she never tried to occupy more space than she needed.”
The Wild Robot is a science fiction survival film based on the books by Peter Brown.
It also stars Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Ving Rhames, Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill, Stephanie Hsu and Matt Berry.
Roz, or ROZZUM unit 7134, is an abandoned robot that must adapt to her new world when she washes on to a deserted island.
“It has universal themes, it is timeless,” Nyong’o said.
“It is set in the near future, one that we don’t yet exist in but it also feels nostalgic in a way. This kind of material is stuff that will resonate for years to come so it felt poignant in a way.”
The funny thing about making an animated movie is that the actors often don’t cross paths at all, or only when it is time to promote the final product.
Nyong’o spoke of the relief of not being physically seen in an animated film.
“What I do for a living involves me being conspicuous a lot of the time. In making the live action movies, you are there front and centre. You are there and you are everywhere, and then you go and promote the film and you are there and everywhere as well.
“When you are working on vocal performance, you don’t have to worry about what you look like, what you’re wearing, you can just be in the booth and do whatever it takes to make your voice as dynamic as possible, so you get to contort your body however you want, you get to sit or stand or make silly sounds … it is liberating to not have to be self-conscious while doing the work and knowing that nobody’s going to get to see this unless they put it in the BTS (behind the scenes).”
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