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Lupita Nyong’o Talks ‘Star Wars’ On ‘The Daily Show With Trevor Noah’

By Dustin Murrell
Published on: 02:15 PST, Dec 3, 2015

One of the stars of the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, Lupita Nyong’o visited The Daily Show With Trevor Noah last night wearing a LED light-infused dress designed by Zac Posen in collaboration with Google. There to promote Episode VII (among other things), Nyong’o explained that the dress was designed in support of the “Made With Code” initiative that encourages women to gain a better understanding of how computer science merges with fashion in today’s world.

Despite the sci-fi appeal that Lupita’s dress warrants, she admitted that it had no direct correlation to the Star Wars franchise or the film she was there to promote (in fact, the dress debuted way back in September during New York Fashion Week).

Since Star Wars wouldn’t provide The Daily Show with a clip to use — and since many of the details about the plot have yet to be released — Trevor Noah jumped right in by asking Lupita what it was like to be a part of the third trilogy of arguably the most revered film franchise of all time.

“It really was kind of out-of-this-world, you know… it really was. I grew up watching Star Wars and it was a part of my life… it came on TV on public holidays, so I thought of Star Wars as time off of school. And it was just incredible to have this opportunity to be a part of it thirty years later.”

As noted by Cinema Blend, Nyong’o voices the part of CGI-based character Maz Kanata, a new character in the Star Wars universe. Noah implied that her role as a CGI-character meant she didn’t have to move around at all for the role. Lupita was quick to correct him.

“No, you do move, you do move. It’s basically… you’re doing the work you do anyway as an actor, but you’re not in costume and you’re not in hair and makeup and you’re in ‘dots’ instead. And you have cameras in your face with LED lights shining and you have your own personal spotlight everywhere you go.”

As Time noted, Lupita Nyong’o is an Oscar-winning actress thanks to her role in 12 Years A Slave. Made to look like a slave in that film, Trevor mentioned that we’ve yet to see the full extent of her natural beauty on the silver screen. Her character is CGI in The Force Awakens, and she voices a cartoon character in the upcoming remake of The Jungle Book.

“I did a film after Star Wars and Jungle Book… I did a film with Mira Nair called Queen of Katwe — which is an incredible movie about this chess prodigy from Uganda — and I play her mother… You’ll get to see my face in that.”

Since she was unable to divulge any new details about the Star Wars film, the host of The Daily Show asked for a brief synopsis of Eclipsed.

“Eclipsed is a beautiful play by Danai Gurira, who is an actress on The Walking Dead, she’s famous for that… it’s about five Liberian women during war time there, during the Civil War, and it’s about how they cope with the war in very different ways, the five of them. And it’s funny, it’s intense, it’s taxing, it’s exciting. It’s a very exciting play. And it was very exhausting to do every day, but every day it was a gift to tell the story.”

Bringing things back to Episode VII, Trevor followed up by asking if it was harder to do the CGI acting for Star Wars or the theater acting for Eclipsed.

“That’s a tough question… I think what was harder was definitely Eclipsed, because there’s a stamina that you need to stay with this kind of material day-in, day-out, and allow yourself to go on that emotional roller coaster from start to finish every day.”

Of course, Noah made one last attempt to get some plot-related details out of the new Maz Kanata. She wouldn’t budge. Laughing, she replied, “There’s a sabre, there’s Han Solo, and… you know… other folks.”

While no specific date has been announced, Queen of Katwe is scheduled to be released in 2016. Lupita Nyong’o stars in the Broadway play, Eclipsed, with previews beginning February 23. Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters on December 14.

[Image via Twitter]

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