10 International Stars You Never Realised Weren’t American

10. Lupita Nyong'o - Kenyan-Raised Mexican

Lupita Nyong'o's success story is almost unbelievable - she's the Yale Drama student who started out as a production assistant in the mid-00s and, after being given some advice to get into the field of acting by Ralph Fiennes when she was crew on his film The Constant Gardener, found a breakthrough role in her very first feature project, 12 Years A Slave, for which she won an Oscar. But one amazing fact less spoken of is how Nyong'o's effortless Southern dialect in 12 Years doesn't come natural at all. Nyong'o was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya, before she relocated to the US in adult life to pursue a film career. Whereas Nyong'o's real voice is a softly spoken, Kenyan-accented English, 12 Years dialect coach Michael Buster worked with her and the rest of the cast, in particular having to "shift the speech" of Nyong'o to play the part of lifelong Georgia slave, Patsey. She was rewarded with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2014 for her effort.