Lupita Nyong'o Says 'Black Panther 2' Was The 'Best Use Of Pain' After Chadwick Boseman Died
“We got to bring our grief with us to work.”
Chadwick Boseman's sudden death shocked the world in 2020, but no one was more shook by the news than his Black Panther co-stars, including Lupita Nyong'o.
The Academy Award-winning actress says they were months away from shooting Black Panther: Wakanda Forever when Boseman, who plays T'Challa, died of colon cancer at age 43. That left everyone devastated and raised questions about how they could even go on without their on- and off-screen leader.
"The world just shattered and shook when Chadwick died, and I couldn't imagine how we move forward, period," Nyong'o recently told Narcity.
She says she'd already spoken to director Ryan Coogler about his plans for Black Panther 2, but with Boseman gone, suddenly they needed to revamp the entire thing in the absence of their King T'Challa.
The result is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a movie that's all about grieving the unexpected off-camera death of T'Challa, much as the world was left to grieve the death of Boseman.
"I love that this film doesn't shy away from the truth of what we were going through," Nyong'o said. "We got to bring our grief with us to work and put it to work, and that is a rare opportunity."
She added that it "wasn't easy," but the film "felt like the right thing to do to pay tribute to Chadwick and bid him farewell."
She says Marvel was struggling to come up with a way to move forward with the story after Boseman's death, but in the end it was Coogler who came up with the solution.
"He so beautifully figured out a way to be true to himself, true to those that Chadwick loved and to the fanbase and carry the story forward," Nyong'o said.
She added that the movie was "quite therapeutical and cathartic to do," and she hopes it helps audiences deal with their own feelings around the actor's death.
The film stars Letitia Wright as T'Challa's grieving younger sister, Shuri, who must figure out how to deal with a threat from underwater ruler Namor (Tenoch Huerta) while picking up the pieces after the Black Panther's death.
The movie also stars Lupita Nyong'o as the Wakandan spy Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda, Winston Duke as M'Baku and Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theatres on November 11.