CinemaCon will honor award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o with its 2024 Star of the Year Award, recognizing her stellar on-screen performances and contributions to the film industry.
The convention — known for gathering the largest and most prominent movie theater owners worldwide — announced on Wednesday that the ceremony will occur in April at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
“In just over ten years, Lupita Nyong’o has established herself as one of the most talented and respected actors of our time,” Mitch Neuhauser, CinemaCon’s managing director, said in a statement. “From her Oscar-winning role in ’12 Years a Slave’ to her most chilling and determined performance in ‘Us,’ she never fails to surprise, captivate and engross us with each new role she undertakes. Lupita Nyong’o is recognized around the world for being a star of the highest magnitude, and CinemaCon and the global exhibition community are honored to recognize her as its 2024 Star of the Year.”
In addition to the esteemed recognition she’s getting this spring, Nyong’o will return to the big screen later this year, starring in the science fiction thriller “A Quiet Place: Day One,” set to release in theaters nationwide on June 28. It’s a prequel to the famous 2018 horror film franchise, “A Quiet Place,” and will follow Nyong’o’s character as she tries to survive an alien invasion.
The film also stars Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff and Djimon Hounsou, with Michael Sarnoski as writer and director.
Nyong’o became a household name for her Academy Award-winning role in the 2013 film “12 Years a Slave,” for which she also received the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Critics’ Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award and several NAACP Image Awards. Her career catapulted following its success, and she began to appear across various movie projects, including in “Black Panther,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Us,” “Little Monsters,” “Queen of Katwe,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “The 355” and others.
Her other accolades include a Daytime Emmy Award for the narration of her New York Times best-selling children’s book, “Sulwe,” plus additional Emmy nominations for her narration on the Discovery docuseries, “Serengeti,” and a Tony Award nomination for her Broadway debut in “Eclipsed.”
The renowned actress, author and producer will receive the CinemaCon Star of the Year Award on April 11.
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