Actress Lupita Nyong'o Talks About God's Blessings and Her Role in New Animation 'The Wild Robot'

Actress Lupita Nyong'o is in the starring role in the film The Wild Robot. The new animated movie follows an intelligent robot named Roz 7134. Roz gets stranded on a deserted island. While on the island she adapts to the animals, and bonds and cares for an orphaned baby goose. Nyong'o is the voice of the Robot, a role she believes will make you cry.

"Well, I think Roz 7134 makes us cry because number one, she doesn't have facial expressions. What she has is a mission to be of help, and we get that from the very start of the movie, and she goes about trying to do that, but in order to do that, she's a fish out of water. She's an alien in this environment, and she has to adapt to it in order to actually finally achieve her goal. I think we cry because of how we recognize that the importance of adaptation in order to survive, but also the importance of staying true to yourself.  I think that's something that we sometimes struggle with. Sometimes adaptation seems like it's going to annihilate us, but in this story, we see that it's not the case," she told CBN News.

Nyong'o is intentional with doing projects like The Wild Robot because of how it reaches children and younger people.

"Well, I like children. I like them. I've always loved children. When I was little, I was the child that wanted to babysit my little sister and not go out and play. I've always loved children... so I've always gravitated to them. I always wanted children of my own. So I think there's that. But I also think that the work of being an adult is healing your childhood wounds. So, I think that in working at things that are for children, I heal my childhood wounds," she continued.

The Wild Robot started as a book, but the film's writer Chris Sanders recalls how it developed into an animated film.

"I first saw it when I dropped into Dreamworks looking for my next gig, and I was looking at what they had in development, and they literally laid a bunch of stuff out on a table, and one of the things was the Wild Robot book. And the moment they described it, there was no question. I was like, this is the one I'm interested in. When I read it, it confirmed that this was magic and I wanted to take it on," he added.

Chris says the film was easy for him to make, but very emotional.

"There was something about this that I cannot explain except to say that everybody on this production exceeded what they needed to do. There was just something about this project that was different. Everyone, everyone fell in love with it, really. There was a moment where I was looking at an effect shot, and again, it exceeded what it needed to do, and I turned to my producer and said, why does this film look this good? And he said, people love this film and everything from the voice performances to the engineering that allowed us to get this look, which is groundbreaking to the music. Everyone went way beyond on this thing and nobody wanted it to end," he told CBN News.

"That's the thing is that, I mean, these are huge productions that take many, many years, well, many years, about 3 or 4 years, but that's a lot. And usually always by the end you're like, I'm ready for the speed on let's finish it. But not this one. Nobody wanted it to end," he continued.

Lupita Nyong'o asked Chris why he chose her to play the voice of Roz 7134.

"One of the first conversations I had with Chris, I asked him, why me? Why me for Roz? And he said he liked the warmth in my voice and what he felt it could express. So we always knew that Roz would end up sounding in her fullest, most individualized state, sounding more like me," she said.

"Then we kind of reverse engineered it. So that first Siri, like Alexa, programmed optimism, sound is her factory settings. And then we work to very, very slowly and subtly color her in with her humanity as she adapts to the island," she continued. 

Playing Roz was the perfect role Nyong'o because of how she strives to live a life of gratitude and bounty.

"I feel, first of all, it's a lesson I learned from my mother. She was inspired by the Prayer of Jabez, and that talks about increasing your bounty. I think that sometimes we are so poised for struggle and strife that we sometimes do not allow for the blessings. It's almost like to ask for more is to be greedy. It's to be selfish. And so we can sometimes kind of limit our blessings. But the lesson my mom taught me is that there is always room for more blessings. That if you believe in a God, He is not, He's not punitive, He's not a limited one. The idea that there's enough to go around. So, if you've been blessed, you can be blessed more. It's also about being content where you are, but also allowing for more because there'll always be struggle. And when that happens, it is your bounty that will see you through," she told CBN News.

The Wild Robot is playing in theaters nationwide.

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