Lupita Nyong'o reveals ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ cast honored Chadwick Boseman

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Lupita Nyong'o revealed the cast honored their late co-star Chadwick Boseman before filming the latest film.

In a new Ebony cover story, Nyong'o, 39, who reprises her role as Nakia from the 2018 blockbuster Black Panther, shared that the film’s cast tried to honor Boseman’s legacy while filming the Wakanda-set sequel. “We invoked [Chadwick’s] spirit on a daily basis,” Nyong’o said.

“All of us found a way to pay tribute to him in different ways,” she said, adding, “The line producer proposed not having a No. 1 person on the call sheet, and so there was no No. 1. And we started with the No. 2 onwards, and when Ryan told me that I just wept, because everybody just wanted to carry him with us.”

Nyong’o further revealed that the entire cast visited Boseman’s grave before they began shooting the sequel. “We visited his resting place before we started filming and we had that moment as a cast,” she said.

“We went with the new cast who hadn’t met him as well. It was our way of continuing this journey. It really doesn’t feel like we have anything to prove to his spirit. I feel very, very centered about how we brought him along with us. Ryan had an artist make this necklace that has Chadwick’s image on it and he wore it every day. So he’s been with us, he knows what we did. He inspired what we did. We honored him unabashedly and unapologetically.”

Boseman died after a four-year battle with cancer in 2020. Marvel studio also insisted that they would not recast his character T'challa, saying that they would dedicate the sequel to Boseman's memory.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will hit theatres on November 11.