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Star Wars’ and ‘Eclipsed’
Nyong’o starred opposite Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore in 2014’s Non-Stop, a thriller about an air marshal confronted by a deadly ransom threat. In June 2014, Disney’s Lucasfilm announced that the Oscar winner was joining the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with the film having a December 2015 release.

On her Instagram account, Nyong’o posted, “I can finally say it out loud and proud: I’m going to a galaxy far far away!” The actress portrays CGI space pirate Maz Kanata in what became the biggest domestic box office outing of all time, a role she reprised for the 2017 sequel, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Nyong’o also prepared for her New York stage debut in autumn 2015 with the Public Theater’s Off-Broadway production of Eclipsed, a drama about the struggles of several Liberian women during civil war. Eclipsed made its way to Broadway the following year in February, and both the play and Nyong’o herself soon earned Tony nominations.

Nyong’o returned to the big screen in 2016 with the feel-good Queen of Katwe, about an African girl who becomes a chess champion, and as the voice of the maternal wolf Raksha in a remake of Disney’s The Jungle Book.