-You were telling me, because I was like,
"Us" is the scariest thing I've ever seen ever.
-Yeah. -You do that movie and I go,
how do you keep it light on set? -Oh.
Okay, so Winston Duke was like the king of dad jokes.
[ Laughter ] And so he would tell these
awful, awful dad jokes, and then Shahadi,
who played my daughter, she had quite a respectable cannon.
Hers were always a little more funny.
And Evan was lame, too. [ Laughter ]
And so -- But I had nothing to share.
So what I'd do to unwind in the evening,
after a day of shooting,
is I would scour the Internet for dad jokes.
And I would save them on my phone,
and then, like, refer to them while we were on set.
And be like, "Oh, oh, I just came up with this one."
[ Laughter ]
Do you have a favorite dad joke? What's a good one?
-Okay. Did you hear about the kidnapping in the park?
-No.
-He was very tired.
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
-Oh, kid napping! Kid napping. -Yes.
-That's a good one. I'm trying to think if I have one.
-Okay. -Okay, I think I have one.
What's Harry Potter's favorite way to go down a hill?
-Um, what? -Walking.
[ Light laughter ]
J.K. "Rowling." [Rolling] -Oh, my God.
[ laughter and applause ] -Come on.
That's pretty good, right?
That's all right. It gets there.
It's a two step. You usually leave the room,
you go, "Walking." And then you come back and go,
J.K. Rowling! [ Laughter ]
Let's talk about this book, by the way.
-Yes. -I loved it, by the way.
It is fantastic. "Sulwe." Tell me what this is about.
It's basically about you, right? -Yeah,
it's a liberal autobiography, really.
It's about this girl called Sulwe.
"Sulwe" means star in my mother tongue, Luo.
And she's born the darkest in her family
and the darkest in her school.
And she's very uncomfortable with her skin
and wants to go about changing it.
But then, a magical night through the night sky
changes her mind, and she learns how to love herself.
[ Audience awws ]
-It's beautiful. It's a beautiful story.
[ Applause ]
Did you do what this girl does, too?
I mean, she tries to eat lighter foods, to change her skin color?
-Yeah, yeah. My thing -- I gave a speech
at the "Essence" women in Hollywood back in 2014
about my journey with dealing with colorism
and prejudice and all that.
One of the things I spoke about was, I would pray to God
every night for lighter skin,
because my mom told me God performs miracles.
So, I thought, "Oh, well, here's one for me.
Give me some light skin."
I had a younger sister who was much lighter.
And so every morning I would wake up and run to the mirror
and see whether he answered my prayer.
I would always be so disappointed.
That's one of the things that Sulwe does in this book.
-Yeah. And you think about that.
I have kids now, so I am extra sensitive to bullying,
or any of that stuff now.
For every kid -- not just my kid, every kid.
I think this is such a great book for everyone to read.
If anyone is dealing with this stuff,
just love yourself, and you're good.
-Yeah! And it's also for people who don't know about colorism
to get to know about it.
You know, it's a mirror for dark skinned girls to see themselves.
Specifically because I didn't have that growing up.
And I wanted to kind of use the pain that I felt for it
to be my weapon, my gift. You know?
But also for other people who might not know,
I hope that this book is a window into understanding
what people that may not be like you can go through.
But ultimately, the message is, that the most important thing
is to love yourself before anything else.
-That's great.
I think you're gonna change a lot of lives with it.
[ Cheers and applause ] Lupita Nyong'o, everybody!
"Sulwe" is available for preorder now!
"Little Monsters," by the way. -Oh, yes.
-I didn't talk about "Little Monsters."
You're in another scary movie. -Yes.
-You have to stop making these scary movies.
-This one's not scary. This one's way more funny than scary.
It's got zombies. It's got ukuleles.
It's got children. It's got animals.
-Zombies and ukuleles, I'm sold. -Yeah.
And it's got terrible language, so please,
it's not for children, despite the fact
that it has children in it. -Okay.
"Little Monsters" is out this week.