Lupita Nyong'o Underwent Therapy Over Cat Phobia For "A Quiet Place: Day One"

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o was terrified of cats, so much so that she even begged Michael Sarnoski, the director of A Quiet Place: Day One, to change the animal in the movie.

In the prequel film, Nyong'o's character Samira returns to her hometown, only to learn that she must survive in silence. Samira works with Eric (Joseph Quinn) to navigate the alien invasion alongside her cat, Frodo.

However, the Black Panther star struggled with felines and found them difficult before filming. “I’ve been terrified of cats my entire life,” she said on CBS Mornings. Nyong'o added, “I wouldn’t be in a room with a cat, I would cry ... I just found them suspicious, you know? They’re like little lions, and like, if they were any bigger, they would eat us.”

How Nyong’o Got Over Her Fears

Despite her fears, the director denied her request to change the animal. "It has to be a cat," she remembers being told. Nyong'o' had to overcome her cat phobia, so she sought exposure therapy.

"They hired someone to bring cats to my home, and on the first day, they just released the cats in my presence," she explained. "I stood on the other side of the room and asked questions about why they were doing what they were doing." That sounds like an awful way to get over your fears, but exposure therapy works!

Samira and Eric had to float through a flooded subway with Frodo in one scene. Cats and water do not mix well, as most of us are aware. “By the time we filmed that scene, I was very comfortable with the cats… [but] the thing you learn about cat behavior is that they don’t like water. And so when I read the scene when we had a cat, in water, that was stressful,” Nyong'o' recalled in another interview.

Nyong’o Is Now a Cat Mom

Nyong'o not only got over her fear of cats but fell in love with them and adopted one herself. On October 28, she went to the animal shelter and became a cat mom to Yoyo, an orange tabby cat. "I have historically been afraid of cats, but when my life was altered instantly recently, a little voice whispered to me that it was time to embrace change and new possibilities," she wrote in her caption on Instagram. "So, a dear friend (shoutout Palmer Hefferan!) held my hand through the process and took me to visit my first animal shelters. I fostered Yoyo from Best Friends Adoption Center, and 3 days into it, I knew I could not give him up."

Now, Nyong'o consistently posts every #caturday on the 'Gram.

And it seems that Yoyo has a great personality! According to the actress, her furry friend "LOVES company," his cat food, is "extremely careful," picky about his toys, only drinks running water, chases bugs, and can't be trusted around supplements.

"I never understood people whose phones were full of photos and videos of their pets - now I am one of those people!" Nyong'o said. "It may look like I saved Yoyo, but really, Yoyo is saving me."

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