Lupita Nyong'o Named ‘Woman of The Year’ By Glamour [VIDEO]

Lupita Nyong'o covers Glamour Magazine's December issue and is named "Woman of the Year." In the past year, the 31-year-old star's life has unfolded like a fairy tale. In a series of breathtaking events, Nyong'o won an Academy Award for her first role in a major film, 12 Years a Slave; was named a new face of Lancôme; scored the cover of People's Most Beautiful issue; and landed key roles in two upcoming films, The Jungle Book and Star Wars: Episode VII.

Hollywood's latest "overnight" success, however, spent years preparing for her turn in the limelight. Nyong'o began her career with work that was socially significant: She starred in an African soap opera, Shuga, which explored controversial subjects like rape and HIV/AIDS, and also directed a film of her own, In My Genes, which dealt with discrimination against people with albinism in Kenya. When she graduated from Yale in 2012 with a master's degree, she had already won the role of Patsey in 12 Years a Slave.

In an interview with Glamour, Lupita talks fame, role models and "the Lupita effect."

Over the past year, Lupita has gone from being virtually unknown to winning an Academy Award for her first major motion picture role. Glamour asks the actress how her life has changed since then.

"This is actually a conversation I look forward to having in 10 years, when all of this is behind me and I have some real perspective on what happened-because right now I'm still adjusting. I guess I feel catapulted into a different place; I have a little whiplash.... I did have a dream to be an actress, but I didn't think about being famous. And I haven't yet figured out how to be a celebrity; that's something I'm learning, and I wish there were a course on how to handle it. I have to be aware that my kinesphere may be larger than I want it to be."

"How does this change affect you day to day?" asked Glamour.

"I've had somebody say, 'I want you at my wedding, but I don't want you to pull focus, so wear jeans!' Losing my anonymity is something that's proving to be very challenging.... It's good for your soul to walk around unnoticed; there's so much you can't do when everybody knows who you are. And I so miss those little things," said Lupita.

Having become a role model for many girls, black girls in particular, Lupita shares her own role model when she was growing up:

"Oprah played a big role in my understanding of what it meant to be female and to really step into your own power. I wouldn't even call her a role model; she was literally a reference point. You have the dictionary, you have the Bible, you have Oprah."

People recently have been talking about "the Lupita effect," which includes everything from consumers running out to buy the lip gloss she's using to designers casting more women of color on the runway. Lupita explains how she reacts to the attention:

"I giggle. I just heard it for the first time. I've heard people talk about images in popular culture changing, and that makes me feel great, because it means that the little girl I was, once upon a time, has an image to instill in her that she is beautiful, that she is worthy-that she can... Until I saw people who looked like me, doing the things I wanted to, I wasn't so sure it was a possibility. Seeing Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah in The Color Purple, it dawned on me: 'Oh-I could be an actress!' We plant the seed of possibility."

In the video below, Lupita talks childhood memories, acting and her incredible Oscar moment.

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