Lupita Nyong’o became a household name for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 12 Years A Slave and she’s parlayed into becoming an integral part of three blockbuster franchises. She’s Maz Kanata in Star Wars, the voice of Raksha in The Jungle Book, and she will play Nakia in the upcoming Marvel film Black Panther. She’s also upped her social media game, posting both behind-the-scenes glimpses of her work and amplifying causes such as the Women’s March. But one of her most recent photos is an enigma. It shows Nyong’o covered in blue goop, ostensibly to make a mold of her face. But to what ends?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQlEmFfhJ56/
A quick look at her IMDb page shows two suspects: Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Black Panther. Either film could have some use for a mold of Lupita Nyong’o.
As Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the special effects wizards responsible for merging Nyong’o with her CGI counterpart to create a seamless character could have use for such a mold. Even with Nyong’o hooked up to a mocap rig to capture her performance, a life-sized reference model would be a useful tool. Then there’s the toys. There’s little doubt Maz Kanata will turn up in your local big box store come this fall and it may be easier to use a mold of Nyong’o than work around her busy schedule to get her back in for action figure development.
Then there is Marvel’s Black Panther, in which Lupita Nyong’o is playing Nakia, one of the King’s bodyguards. Known as the Dora Milaje, the women who protect the King of Wakanda take their jobs very seriously. But Nakia is known by another name: Malice. After her unrequited love for Black Panther leads her down a dangerous path, in the comics, Nakia turns into a villain. While in the comics she never dons a mask nor takes any damage to her face, a mold such as the one in the above image could definitely be used to create a dummy which will be injured or killed. But that would be a pretty big spoiler…
What do you guys think? Who blue Lupita? Marvel or Lucasfilm?