I learned at Yale, one of the biggest lessons was to learn how special I am and therefore how totally unspecial I am. I was special among everyone else who was special. The fact that we're all so individual and that's what makes us special.

The Hollywood Film Awards were really stressful. It was the biggest press line I'd ever seen.

Home is where my family is.

I want to be uncomfortable - acting is uncomfortable.

I have a very ostrich mentality. I feel like I have my head in the sand so no one can see me.

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'

To this day, I love eating steak tacos before going to the red carpets.

I am very emotional about politics in a way that makes it hard for me to articulate things in a rational fashion.

I can speak of actors that I love. I love Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, her tenacity. I love Charlize Theron. She's so surprising and so exhilarating, the kinds of projects she takes on. Marion Cotillard as well.

I spent some time back in Mexico at 16 because my parents thought it would be prudent for me to learn Spanish, because I held a Mexican passport.

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor.

I do my best work when I feel conviction to say something through the character I play. Always I want to have integrity and not compromise that.

The muscles you flex in theater are muscles that you really need. I must always find a way to get back there. It's irreplaceable.

I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up about abuse and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed.

The set of '12 Years a Slave' was an extremely joyous one! We all recognized that we were making a powerful, necessary and beautiful film, and we weren't about doing it without that sense of responsibility, and we recognized that we needed each other to tell this story. We also knew we needed to hold each other up as we told the story.

Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'

I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.

Before the advent of the white man, black people were doing all kinds of things with their hair. The rejection of kinks and curls did come with the white man.

I went to an all-boys high school, and they accepted girls in only the two A.P. classes.

I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.

All throughout filming '12 Years a Slave,' there was a focus like no other. Everyone took ownership of this film and gave their all.

There have been rumors and rumors and rumors about my love life. That's the one area that I really like to hold close to my heart.

I don't need to be so full of myself that I feel I am without flaw. I can feel beautiful and imperfect at the same time. I have a healthy relationship with my aesthetic insecurities.

I'm pretty awesome at making salad dressings.

Steve McQueen is a genius. And I think that word is overused, but I think with Steve it's rightly used. He's a genius.

I'm still trying to get over the fact that my name is being mentioned with people like Brad Pitt.

Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It... keeps us honest.

My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.

My father was a professor of political science and also a young politician fighting for democracy in Kenya, and when things got ugly, he went into political exile in Mexico. Then I moved back to Kenya shortly after I turned one, and I grew up in Kenya.

Our business is complicated because intimacy is part and parcel of our profession; as actors, we are paid to do very intimate things in public. That's why someone can have the audacity to invite you to their home or hotel, and you show up.

My mother talked about the stories I used to spin as a child of three, before I started school. I would tell this story about what school I went to and what uniform I wore and who I talked to at lunchtime and what I ate, and my mother was like, 'This girl does not even go to school.'

The beauty standards had nothing to do with me in Mexico. It was such a bizarre, dire time for my hair. I was living in a small town where there was not any semblance of an African community. I'd have to take the bus to Mexico City to find a woman who could braid my hair. That was two and a half hours away.

I always envisioned working in film and in theater. Theater and film are not, they're not in any way substitutable. What I love about theater is so different from what I love about film, and I enjoy the craft of both.

My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.

I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.

I have dabbled in martial arts all my life, since I was 7, maybe - tae kwon do, capoeira, Muay Thai. It's always been an interest because in martial arts there is a mind/body relationship.

One of the reasons why I went to the Yale School of Drama is because I felt that I was acting off of instinct, but sometimes that is not reliable. When you're not feeling it, what do you do? So, going to grad school was about getting the tools to just use my instrument to the best of my ability.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

Drama is my sweet spot, but the thing about being an actor is that you want to do a variety of things. I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

I come from a very close class. I lucked out because drama schools are often very competitive... I have fourteen classmates.

I have the opportunity to learn about the fashion world, and I appreciate it as an art form... But I never want it to take over my acting.

My conscious life has all been in Kenya, and it's my point of reference. But going back to Mexico was very formative.

I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.

I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.

I am thrilled beyond words that The Academy has recognized my performance in Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave,' and I am deeply proud to be in the company of my fellow nominees.

I'm a crybaby.

I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses.

I give myself homework when I have an audition. I give myself goals, and that's how I check how I'm doing. It can be something simple like 'listen,' or 'find your feet.' And then afterward it's an assessment, so in a way it's not about booking the job or not. It's about what I learned as an actor about that character.

I never, in my wildest dreams, could I have thought that the first role I get out of school would lead to an Oscar nomination.