Lupita Nyong’o still misses her late friend Chadwick Boseman — and said she likely always will.
The Oscar winner participated Monday at a BFI London Film Festival event where the conversation turned to “Black Panther” (2018). After watching herself on-screen opposite Boseman in a clip played for the crowd, she began to cry and detailed her grief.
“I have to admit, I haven’t seen the film since Chadwick died, so I’m having a moment,” Nyong’o said onstage, per The Hollywood Reporter. “The grief is just the love, with no place to put it, right … I don’t run away from the tears or the grief, you know? You just live with it.”
“That experience will never be separate from the love that was formed,” she continued.
Boseman died at age 43 in 2020 from colon cancer. The South Carolinian had become a bonafide A-lister only two years prior after starring as the lead in “Black Panther,” which broke box office records in 2018.
His character, T’Challa, became an inspiration for Black youths around the world.
“I watch this clip and I’m filled with grief,” said Nyong’o after watching her character, Nakia, interact with Boseman’s, per THR. “I don’t know whether I’ll ever be done shedding my tears from losing my friend. But I’m like, ‘We get to see him alive.’ And that’s so wonderful.”
While the film became a genuine phenomenon at the time, Nyong’o recalled there being “a lot of fear” from “the executives” at Marvel, who were purportedly “shaking a little bit in their boots” about the prospects of a comic book movie with an all-Black cast turning a profit.
“We were too because we were like, we only get to do this once,” Nyong’o said Monday.
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The Ryan Coogler project grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office and became the highest-grossing film with a predominantly Black cast of all time. Nyong’o recalled Monday that its success “totally shattered the myth that Black doesn’t sell.”
The “Screen Talk” event, which Nyong’o primarily attended to promote her latest film “The Wild Robot,” came only two months after she shared a heartbreaking Instagram dedication to Boseman that began with an unattributed quote about the process of grief.
“‘Grief never ends. But it changes. It is a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It’s the price of love,’” Nyong’o shared in the caption, before concluding: “Remembering Chadwick Boseman. Forever.”