Lupita Nyong’o was a relative unknown before she burst on the screen with her captivating performance in ’12 Years a Slave’. Her role as Patsey in Steve McQueens award-winning slave drama, which told the true-to-life story of Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), saw her pick up the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and placed her irrevocably in the limelight.

Lupita Nyong'oLupita Nyong'o is fast becoming a fashion icon, too

"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 recognising me - before I recognised them!” the Kenyan-Mexican star explained, adding that she knew she was ‘famous’ when the paparazzi were pointing their lenses at her.

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"I looked behind me to see who they were flashing at - and it was me. That was the beginning of the end of my anonymity... 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."

Looking forward, Nyong’o has signed on to a number of excited new projects, including a voice role in Jon Favreau's take on Disney's The Jungle, a role in Star Wars: Episode VII and a co-producer/starring role in an adaptation of the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah. She said of her new projects: "It's a wonderful opportunity to be working in these fantastical realms. They're worlds away from 12 Years A Slave, that's for sure - but that kind of diversity is what dreams are made of."

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