Nyong'o appears in The Odyssey, in a career notable for its range of technique. She has worked in prestige historical drama, in performance capture roles where nothing of her appears on screen, and in horror requiring two entirely separate physical and vocal performances within one film.
She is Kenyan and Mexican, trained in drama in the United States after working in film production in Kenya, and she won an Academy Award for her first significant screen role. She has since written a children's book and worked in theatre, and she has been a prominent voice on representation in casting.
Recurring subjects: duality, characters split between two states or identities, and physical performance carrying what dialogue cannot. She builds characters from voice and movement, which is why her capture and horror work is so distinctive, and she is unusually willing to be physically and vocally unrecognisable.
Her debut performance won an Academy Award, an almost unprecedented outcome for a first major role, and her horror lead is regularly named among the strongest performances the genre has produced. Her capture work is frequently cited in arguments that the technique preserves rather than replaces acting.
For viewers who want to see one performer use completely different techniques. Suited to anyone approaching the horror work, and to those who should follow it with the historical drama that started the career.
