He saw the magic in this story, and you know Disney loves magic. It’s all thanks to Tendo Nagenda, who is of Ugandan descent and he’s an executive at Disney.
Were you surprised that Disney didn't want to, say, stick Leonardo DiCaprio in there to make it more 'palatable'? The film's the story of an African chess prodigy and has no white characters. I was an intern at her film company back in 2006, and their slogan is, “If we don’t tell our stories, no one else will.” And I really and truly believe that.’ I can’t imagine anyone who could’ve made this film as authentically and lovingly as Mira did.
‘I was so thrilled to be able to go back to East Africa and shoot a film with Mira Nair.
'Queen of Katwe' is the first film you've shot in Africa. It was shot entirely on location, and strikes a perfect balance between twinkly charm and real-world roughness. The film is based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi, a girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who found her calling as a chess prodigy. In that context, her new film ‘Queen of Katwe’ feels timely: it may have been produced by Walt Disney Pictures, but don’t go expecting fairy princesses and talking frogs, or indeed any white stars to keep Middle American audiences happy. Talk about a meteoric rise.Īs a vocal supporter of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign – and as one of the few black women to actually win an Oscar – Nyong’o is central to the debate about diversity in cinema that’s been raging in recent years. Flash forward nine years and she’s picking up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her first serious role in ‘ 12 Years a Slave’ and gearing up to play CGI character Maz Kanata in ‘ Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. After graduating from film school in the US, she returned to Africa to work as a production assistant on the likes of ‘ The Constant Gardener’, whose star Ralph Fiennes urged her to get into acting. Hollywood actors love to make a fuss about how ‘real’ their backgrounds were: my parents split up! My boyfriend was a drug addict! I was raised a Scientologist! But Lupita Nyong’o is the real deal: the daughter of a prominent Kenyan opposition leader, she grew up in Nairobi never knowing if her dad would come home or be confined to prison without trial.
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