thestreep:

Lupita Nyong’o on the dolls she made for her character Patsey:

“I have trouble taking credit for it because I just feel like it was Patsey’s guidance. Part of my ritual was I talked to her every day before I got on set because I do believe these spirits live on. So about a week before we started filming, I was daydreaming in my hotel room as I like to do just about the work and Patsey and just asking myself what would  she do in the little free time she had. I knew that Epps grew corn on his plantation so it just occurred to me, ‘Oh what if she made crafts out of corn husks?’

"I look it up on the internet and it was historically accurate that slaves did make crafts out of corn husks and then there was always something very child-like about Patsey. She had been robbed of her childhood by master Epps taking an early interest in her sexually and so I thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if she made corn husk dolls for the children on the plantation?’ It was just something that I was going to know, but then the next day I had a meeting with Steve and he was asking me about Patsey and what I was thinking and I mentioned it to him and he loved the idea. So he immediately had the art department supply me with corn husk and I went about learning how to make corn husk dolls.”