Lupita Nyong’o Damaged Her Vocal Cords Playing Roz in ‘Wild Robot’

• Lupita Nyong’o voices the main character Roz in “The Wild Robot,” in theaters Friday.
• Nyong’o strained her vocal cords, forming a polyp as she recorded Roz’s robotic yet soulful voice.
• Recording sessions were halted for three months to allow Nyong’o to recover without surgery.

The new film from DreamWorks Animation, ‘The Wild Robot’, is a heartwarming story about a utility robot named ROZZUM (‘Pink’ for short) who finds herself on an island and discovers that her purpose goes far beyond what she was built.

Voicing a robot that gradually becomes more human also ended up being a physically demanding experience for actor Lupita Nyong’o, who struggled both figuratively and literally to create a voice for Roz that would it could be both robotic and emotional.

“Lupita didn’t just show up and read the script; she absolutely dismantled the idea of ​​who this robot is?” “Wild Robot” director Chris Sanders told Business Insider.

“He had to understand all of this in order to create the right voice,” he added. “It was a fascinating journey to watch her dissect the character piece by piece. It wasn’t easy for her.”

As a result, Nyong’o’s vocal cords paid the price.

At some point in her years-long recording sessions, Sanders was notified that Nyong’o needed to rest vocally. She had strained her vocal cords so much doing Roz’s voice that they formed a polyp, a growth on the vocal cords that forms from overuse or misuse.

“I wasn’t even aware, honestly, of the stress she was putting on her own voice,” Sanders said. In retrospect, he added, it makes sense — Roz should have a “programmed optimism” in her voice when she first arrives on the island, and Lupita pulled that off by straining her voice. “He suffered wear and tear from that,” Sanders said. – And I didn’t even know.

Nyong’o revealed on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in June that doing Roz’s “super-positive” voice for several weeks led to the polyp. She was scheduled for surgery, but declined and focused on recovering without speaking, stopping her recording sessions for three months to ensure she could heal. She even carried a note that read, “I’m in vocal rest,” when she attended a Taylor Swift concert around that time.

Sanders, who is no stranger to voice work — he directed the Disney classic “Lilo & Stitch” and also provided the voice for Stitch — said he noticed how much care Nyong’o took to protect her voice once she returned .

“She altered the records to avoid damage,” he said. “He would rest his voice and hydrate his throat throughout the sessions because he understood it was a marathon.”

“The Wild Robot” opens in theaters Friday.