Lupita Nyong'o learned to play ukulele for 'Little Monsters'

Los Angeles: Actor Lupita Nyong'o learned to play the ukulele for her role of a school teacher in horror-comedy "Little Monsters".

The 36-year-old actor plays a preschool teacher who fights to keep her students alive in the middle of a zombie outbreak. She tries to keep the spirits high with ukulele sing-alongs of hit songs such as Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off".

The actor said she was happy that she had a musically-gifted character but she did ask whether she was getting a "ukulele double" for the role.

"I love Fraulein Maria in 'The Sound of Music' and she's [Miss Caroline is] my Fraulein. I even asked [Abe], 'Are you gonna have a ukulele double?," she said at the SXSW Conference.

Director Abe Forsythe, who also attended the event with Nyong'o, replied, "I told her, 'No, you can win an Oscar, you can learn to play the ukulele.' "

The actor wrote to Swift to help get the rights of the song.

"It meant a lot to me that this film had that (song). And so when I heard that they were having a hard time (getting the rights) I wrote Taylor Swift myself and asked her, and told her that story. And she said yes!," Nynog'o said.