“Nyong’o says she turned down several on-screen roles to pursue the lead in Eclipsed, which features an all-black, female cast, and that Gurira’s play means more to her than playing a peripheral character in a film. Since 12 Years a Slave, the actress has lent her voice to characters like Raksha in The Jungle Book and Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, characters she says interested her because, even as computer-generated renderings, they encompass more cathartic singularity than a role like ‘the wife’ or ‘the sidekick,’ which black women are often relegated to.
‘I think as women, as women of color, as black women, too often we hear about what we ‘need to do.’ How we need to behave, what we need to wear, what’s deemed as too much or not enough, the cultural politics of what society considers appropriate for us and for our lives,’ the essay reads. ‘As an African woman, I am wary of the trap of telling a single story… The chance to appear in Eclipsed after winning an Oscar was an opportunity to share in the incredible (and too rare) freedom of playing a fully rendered African woman. The playwright, Danai Gurira, has conceived a drama where the only people onstage are women… So often women of color are relegated to playing simple tropes: the sidekick, the best friend, the noble savage, or the clown. We are confined to being a simple and symbolic peripheral character — one who doesn’t have her own journey or emotional landscape.’”
Lupita Nyong’o pens essay on why she chose Eclipsed over Hollywood | EW.com
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