'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever': Winston Duke remembers late costar Chadwick Boseman

Winston Duke remembered late friend during promotions of upcoming movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

The actor opened up about the experience of filming the movie without friend and co-star Chadwick Boseman during an interview on the Jemele Hill Is Unbothered podcast released Monday, October 3rd.

“That is something that we have to wrestle with daily on set because there was a gaping hole when it came to his presence,” the 38-year-old actor revealed. “You felt it daily. You felt him not being there.”

Duke also added that the set was very different this time around. “He was a very gentle presence of strength, power, and scope,” the Tobagonian actor shared. “You knew he was there, but he didn't have to say anything. He wasn't walking around with a big ego… You don't realise the impact when they're there. But when they're not, it's apparent. You feel it intrinsically and that was the experience on set daily for a year.”

Duke’s other costars felt the Boseman's loss on the set as well. “I think this film has the fog of loss over it, and anamorphic lenses warp the image a little bit,” director and co-writer Ryan Coogler recently told Entertainment Weekly. “Sometimes when you go through profound loss, it can warp how you look at the world.”

“What we were after was just making it feel tactile, even though it felt like a dream,” added the filmmaker, 36. “The film should feel like a really wild dream that you would have, but where everything felt like it was really there.”

Boseman, who died of colon cancer in 2020 at age 43, had been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016 and had battled it privately for four years as it progressed to stage IV. The late actor left an indelible mark in Hollywood after his portrayal of the titular character Black Panther.