“I am constantly underestimated”
For decades, Octavia Spencer languished in small supporting roles with little hope of stardom. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for 2011 drama The Help, playing Southern maid Minny, who gifts her employer a poop pie in one of the movie’s most memorable scenes.
Five years later, she earned her second Oscar nomination, graduating from servant to NASA mathematician Dorothy Vaughan for – a drama inspired by the real lives of three black women who became unlikely heroes during the Space Race. Twelve months later, she landed her third Oscar nomination for and the work hasn’t stopped since for this talented self-made star.
