[Video] We Ask Lupita Nyong’o The Question Everyone Wants Answered About Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Lupita Nyong’o said working on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever helped her to process the loss of Chadwick Boseman.

In the sequel to 2018’s Black Panther, Nyong’o reprises her role as spy Nakia and former lover of the Black Panther/T’Challa, played by Boseman, who died in 2020 from colon cancer.

This time, the fictional nation of Wakanda is threatened by Namor the Submariner (Tenoch Huerta), the ruler of the aquatic kingdom of Talocan.

At the recent virtual press con, Nyong'o, 39, said she was moved at how the director and co-writer Ryan Coogler deftly incorporated Boseman’s/T’Challa’s passing into the movie.

It would’ve been different if Marvel Studios gone down the route of simply replacing Boseman with another actor. (She shared the sentiment previously with Empire: “By the end of it, I was in tears that I didn’t have to pretend that he didn’t die.”)

“Actually, playing her was very therapeutic for me,” the Oscar-winning star of 12 Years a Slave said. “When we're talking about the exploration of grief, it's really grounding to have someone who is, I want to say, befriending of the change for the people in the story, but also for an audience.”

The Kenyan-Mexican actor again touched on grief and moving on at Wakanda Forever’s European premiere in London a few days later. "When Chadwick Boseman died, it felt like the end,” she said. "I couldn't imagine moving forward and I know Ryan [Coogler] felt the same way and a lot of us felt that way."

She continued, “He figured out a way to embrace the truth of what was going on in our lives and ask the questions about how you move forward and he made that the subject of this film.

“By doing so, he’s given a chance to grieve, he’s given us a chance to pay tribute and he's given us a chance to move forward and that’s the one thing you have to do when someone dies in your life that means something to you. You have to re-evaluate why it's important to live.”

In a video interview with 8days.sg, Nyong’o reveals the impact Boseman’s death had on her during the making of Wakanda Forever and how the intense underwater training affected her psyche. Because we didn’t see the movie before the junket, we also asked her the question on everybody’s mind….

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in cinemas on Nov 10 (Thur). Watch more interviews on meWATCH and Mediacorp YouTube Channel.

Photo: TPG News/Click Photos