Hollywood star Lupita Nyong’o picked up the Best Actress award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
The 36-year-old Kenyan actress was awarded the gong for her work in Jordan Peele’s horror movie ‘Us’ at the prestigious awards ceremony, while Antonio Banderas, 59, picked up the Best Actor award for ‘Pain and Glory’.
Laura Dern won Best Actress for ‘Marriage Story’ and ‘Little Women’, while ‘The Irishman’s Joe Pesci won Best Supporting Actor.
Best Screenplay went to Quentin Tarantino for ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and Claire Mathon picked up Best Cinematography for ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’.
Other winners included Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov’ whose film ‘Honeyland’ was awarded Best Non-Fiction Film’, Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Parasite’ for Best Foreign Language Film, Jérémy Clapin’s ‘I Lost My Body’ for Best Animated Feature and Mati Diop, who picked up the Best First Film Award for ‘Atlantics’.
Meanwhile, the Sulwe author recently admitted she wouldn’t have become an actress without her parents’ support.
The ‘Black Panther’ star credits her mother for “nurturing her artistic spirit”, as she insisted she wouldn’t have made it as an actress without her support as there weren’t facilities in her hometown of Nairobi, Kenya like there is in America.
She said: “I was thinking about the Harlem School of Arts and what it does for children and its students and I didn’t have an institution where I’m in from in Nairobi, Kenya. And so the only way my interest in the arts thrived was because I had parents who valued those interests. And my mother in particular, she really nurtured my artistic spirit. She drove to rehearsals after a long day at work and waited in the car for five or so hours … and she never complained.”
Whilst her mother Dorothy Nyong’o added: “I really didn’t do much. I looked for opportunities to nurture that. My job was really to facilitate it and I’d like to encourage parents to do it.
“Sometimes we make the mistake of trying to make our children what we think we want. I’m proud of her. She makes me shine.”
She became the first Kenyan actress to win an Academy Award in 2014 for her role as Patsey in 12 Years A Slave. Also in 2014, she was named the most beautiful woman by People.
