Lupita Nyong'o recalls her crush on Leonardo DiCaprio, watching ...

12 Years a Slave actor Lupita Nyong'o, on Thursday, recalled her crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. Nyong'o received CinemaCon's star of the year award on the event's closing night, at the Big Screen Achievement Awards. 

While accepting the trophy at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, she said, when she got to know that she would receive the award, she pondered what cinema meant to her. 

“One of my strongest memories from my adolescence came to mind,” she said, Hollywood Reporter reported. “My very first date was going to see a movie at the cinema in Nairobi, Kenya, where I grew up. I was 16. Not only was I going out with this boy I liked for the first time, but I would be watching my crush Leonardo DiCaprio in none other than Titanic,” she said. 

The actor received the award for her soon-to-be-released film, A Quiet Place: Day One. She recalled watching Titanic, where DiCaprio's character dies in the icy cold Atlantic Ocean. “I was so devastated by the fate of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character that I wept and wept. Long after the credits had rolled, I was inconsolable,” the 41-year-old said. “ It was an experience that shook me to the core that night. What I experienced firsthand was the power of cinema to transport us to another world, to make us feel things we never thought possible — like developing a fear of glaciers,” she added. In 2014, when Nyong'o met DiCaprio at an awards event, the latter kissed her on the cheek. 

A Quiet Place: Day One, is a prequel to the sci-fi horror film, A Quiet Place, written by John Krasinski and Sarnoski. The prequel is directed and written by Sarnoski. It will be released in June.