Actress Lupita Nyong’o faced a personal fear while shooting for “A Quiet Place: Day One,” and it wasn’t the monsters that terrified her.
Before taking on the role of Samira for the post-apocalyptic thriller film, Ms. Nyong’o had been terrified of cats her whole life. When she realized that the character in the movie owned a cat, she begged director Michael Sarnoski to consider another animal, even suggesting an armadillo.
“I wouldn’t be in a room with a cat. I would cry,” she said.
“I just found them suspicious, you know? They’re like little lions, and like if they were any bigger, they would eat us,” she continued. “So I begged the director to consider a different animal ... like an armadillo, something like that.”
The Oscar-winning actress then went to “cat therapy.”
“They hired someone to bring cats to my home, and the first thing, they just released the cats in my presence,” she said. “I stood on the other side of the room and asked questions about why they were doing what they were doing.”
Ms. Nyong’o shared that she eventually was able to touch the cats during the treatment.
When asked what she hopes people will take away from “A Quiet Place,” she hopes the audience becomes enamored with cats like she did during filming.
“I hope they fall in love with cats as I did in making this movie,” she said.
She added that she now owns a cat after falling in love with the animal. “I mean that was the effect it had on me,” she told the reporters.
Ms. Nyong’o fostered her cat Yoyo for three days before committing to adopting him.
“Introducing my new companion, Yoyo! I have historically been afraid of cats, but when my life was altered instantly recently, a little voice whispered to me that it was time to embrace change and new possibilities,” the caption reads.
“So, a dear friend (shoutout Palmer Hefferan!) held my hand through the process and took me to visit my first animal shelters. I fostered Yoyo from Best Friends Adoption Center, and 3 days into it, I knew I could not give him up,” she wrote.
Ms. Nyong’o listed what she has learned about her cat, including his love for company and food, extreme carefulness, and sole drinking choice of running water.
Nyong’o’s Background
In 1983, Ms. Nyong’o was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico, after her parents fled Kenya due to political unrest. She attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, earning a degree in film, and then the Yale School of Drama, where she earned a master’s degree in acting. During this time, she directed, edited, and produced the film In My Genes (2009), featured at the 2010 New York African Film Festival.Ms. Nyong’o received her big break after appearing in her first feature film “12 Years a Slave” (2013), where she plays the role of Patsey, an enslaved woman abused by her plantation master Edwin Epps and his wife. Due to her performance in the movie, Ms. Nyong’o won a 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Other film and voice appearances from Ms. Nyong’o include “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015), “Black Panther” (2018) and its sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022), and the horror film “Us” (2019).
The Oscar-winning actress is also a fashion icon, appearing in publications such as InStyle, W, Vanity Fair, and on the July 2014, October 2015, October 2016, and January 2018 cover of Vogue.
In 2019, the “Queen of Katwe” star made her writing debut with her book Sulwe, which became a number one New York Times bestselling book.
