Black Panther 2’s Okoye Actor Teases Emotional Arc In MCU Sequel

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Danai Gurira teases an emotional arc for Okoye in Ryan Coogler’s upcoming sequel. Wakanda Forever will integrate Chadwick Boseman’s real-life passing by retiring the character of King T’Challa. The Kingdom of Wakanda must unite to battle Namor (Tenoch Huerta) in the wake of T’Challa’s death, while a new Black Panther will be introduced by the movie’s end.

As reported by Screenrant, there has been much speculation about how the movie would handle Boseman’s passing.

Marvel Studios has already announced that the character of T’Challa would not be recast and that someone would take over the mantle of Black Panther from the late king.

During a virtual press conference in which Screen Rant was in attendance, Gurira explained how two sides of her personality helped her play Okoye in the sequel. She also explained how the movie allowed her to explore multiple facets of Okoye’s humanity and talked about how her primary goal as an actor was to honor Boseman’s legacy, which she held on through the entire production. Check out what she had to say on her character arc below:

“There are two sides of me. There’s the side that gets it, and the side that’s like, “Woah, really? Do we have to?” Definitely, that came out when I first heard it, and then the other side took over and understood that this was actually great. And I’m very thankful for the idea that these characters get to explore so many facets of their human-ness. I think that that is something that is crucial, honestly, with a platform this unprecedented—that we see a kaleidoscope of their human-ness. And the world gets to see that, because it isn’t very common. We don’t get to see that much. It was, I think, a direct contrast to what Lupita was going through. I felt quite displaced in the process, and I think that was connected to what my character was experiencing. And that was connected also to a little of the experience of the loss of our brother, and the process that was connected to that. As I was going through the story, the key thing anchoring me was the goal of honoring him and the way he loved excellency. He loved to see us shine and loved to see us do our thing. And we would go to him and say, “What do you think about this? What do you think about my character?” And he would always give us so much encouragement about doing great things, and he had such great taste. I think that was really an anchoring aspect throughout the process for me. I can’t share anything, so I’m just walking around this thing.”