You know that awkward moment when you realize you will never wake up looking like Lupita Nyong’o? Yeah, that just happened.
We know it’s not her fault that she’s the Most Beautiful Person of 2014 ever, but that doesn’t make us feel any better if we can be perfectly honest with you.
The Academy-Award winning actress is beaming on the cover of Glamour magazine in a bright white top from The Row paired with Celine earrings that shine almost as bright as her smile does. Inside the issue, the queen of the red carpet wears more designer digs oh-so-well, from a list of labels like Miu Miu, Balenciaga, and Dior.
See more stunning photos of Lupita below, along with quotes from her interview, before the issue arrives on newsstands November 11.
On what success means to her:
For me it’s not just one thing. Every time I overcome an obstacle, it feels like success. Sometimes the biggest ones are in our head—the saboteurs that tell us we can’t. I’ve always had that going on: “I can’t,” and then I do, so the voice says, “Well, that was an exception!” It’s a tug-of-war between two voices: the one who knows she can and the one who’s scared she can’t.
Who her role model is:
Oprah played a big role in my understanding of what it meant to be female and to really step into your own power. I wouldn’t even call her a role model; she was literally a reference point. You have the dictionary, you have the Bible, you have Oprah.
On her responsibility to young women:
I feel a responsibility to myself and my parents and the people whose love has gotten me this far—people who were in my life before fame. That’s where I get my sense of self. It’s deadly for anyone to take on that role of a deity; it’s not sustainable. I’ve got tons of flaws. Call my mother—she’ll tell you! She keeps it real. Sometimes you don’t want to hear the truth; she’ll tell it to you out of love.
What she thinks about the “Lupita Effect:”
I giggle. I just heard it for the first time. I’ve heard people talk about images in popular culture changing, and that makes me feel great, because it means that the little girl I was, once upon a time, has an image to instill in her that she is beautiful, that she is worthy—that she can… Until I saw people who looked like me, doing the things I wanted to, I wasn’t so sure it was a possibility. Seeing Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah in The Color Purple, it dawned on me: “Oh—I could be an actress!” We plant the seed of possibility.
Head over to Glamour for more.
PHOTO CREDIT & SOURCE: Glamour
