Lupita Nyong’o is the cover girl for the October issue of Vogue. YAY!!! This is Lupita’s third American Vogue cover, which is wonderful… until you try to remember how many times Blake Lively has been on Vogue. Lupita covers Vogue to promote her role in Queen of Katwe, and the Mario Testino photoshoot took place in her family’s village in Kenya. Lupita talks about the choices she made following her Oscar win, what stories she wants to tell and more. You can read the full Vogue piece here. Some highlights:

Using her Oscar win to tell diverse stories: “Being able to use my platform to expand and diversify the African voice… I feel very passionate about that. It feels intentional, meaningful.”

The European standard of beauty: “The European sense of beauty affects us all. I came home from college in the early two-thousands and saw ads on TV with a girl who can’t get a job. She uses this product. She gets her skin lighter. She gets the job. The lording of lighter skin is a common thing growing up in Nairobi. Being called ‘black mamba.’ The slow burn of recognizing something else is better than you.”

Changing the way we perceive beauty & black women: “Alek Wek changed how dark people saw themselves. That I could do the same in a way for somebody somewhere is amazing,” Lupita says, bounding out of her chair, talking about the benefit of having visibility and influence. She is the first black woman, for example, to have landed a Lancome contract. “There is no point in getting your picture taken if it doesn’t move somebody.” Her eyes widen. “Right?”

Her advocacy work: Lupita has lent her voice to save elephants and to end maternal mortality in childbirth. She’s supported a project for girls begun by Salima Visram, who grew up in Mombasa near an impoverished village with no electricity. Visram designed a backpack for children fitted with a solar panel that is connected to a battery pack. As the children take the long walk to school, their battery is charged, and at night, after chores, the battery can power an LED lamp and they can study. Lupita loved the idea and devised a quote for the backpack: The power is in your step — Lupita Nyong’o. Today Visram has produced 500 backpacks, with 3,000 more in the works, and has moved the factory to Kenya to generate employment and income.

How she feels about the position she’s in to do some good: “There are certain cards that have been dealt me that I take on. I want to create opportunities for other people of color because I’m fortunate enough to have a platform to do that. That is why Eclipsed and even Queen of Katwe are so important, to change the narrative, offer a new lens on African identity.”

[From Vogue]

A lot was written about Lupita’s possible career path following her Oscar win for 12 Years a Slave, and a lot of what was written was rough. Basically, there were a lot of “think pieces” about how difficult it would be for most Hollywood producers to hire a dark-skinned African actress like Lupita. Now that we’re two and a half years removed from her Oscar win, it’s interesting to see that she has worked consistently, she’s driven passion projects and she’s been choosey about what she says yes to. But yeah, she’s not getting the same kind of scripts as a Jennifer Lawrence. Hell, Lupita isn’t getting the same kind of scripts as a Rooney Mara. And that sucks. But Lupita still rises, and that’s beautiful.

Photos courtesy of Mario Testino for VOGUE.