Black Panther | EXCLUSIVE Interview with Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o

I’m still reeling over my first official Marvel Press junket for Black Panter in LA last month, and today, I’m here to share the very first interview with you all! Danai Gurira (Okoye) and Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia) are two of the lovely leading ladies who we were able to sit down with and discuss everything from their thought of women led guards and being a love interest of the king. Here’s what they had to say. 

I specifically asked about the casino fight scene that the trailers have been teasing us with for several weeks, because I was ENTHRALLED with the red dress that Okoye wears. The choreography that goes into it also fascinated me, and hearing that they did it in ONE TAKE took the cake. Read more below. 

Q: Can we you talk about how beautiful the scene in the casino was and that red dress? It’s just amazing and the training process for that or both of you. What did you go through and how did you challenge that and still look super graceful while you were doing it? It was almost like a dance and I absolutely loved it. It’s one of my favorite scenes. 

 

DG:  Yeah, we trained a lot. I loved seeing those guys last night. Jo Jo and — Michael (fight chroeographers) wasn’t there. Michael was my guy. Maddie was hers and they’re just awesome, awesome guys and, you know, just took us through so many like components of — and they really were so smart with how they crafted with Ryan. You know, how these two, these women are different and how they — their fighting styles are very different. Mine is very traditional. Hers is get the job done, you know, and so my character’s gonna pull out her spear and she’s gonna do forms that have been in Wakandan tradition for generations in this particular place and she’s just gonna take them down and smack them down you know what I mean and I just love that. 

 

I love that deliberation but yeah, I mean for the casino, like for all of us there was a lot of, a lot of preparation for that scene and he wanted to do a one-er which I think does — one-er for those who don’t know which I don’t know (getting a scene in one take), you know, so like the idea of how like, you know, when she lifts up the gun and, you know, then the camera would follow her and then land up on me, up on the balcony. I mean that was a precision and then the idea of how like, you know, when I was up there and, I was at that there were some other stuff I was doing but they just caught me before at that move and then going into the rest of it like it had to — all of us, everybody around we had to, there wasn’t — they weren’t gonna cut it up so we couldn’t go okay, if something happens we’re going back to the beginning, you know, and it was tedious.  

 

LN: It was tedious but fun.   

 

DG: Yeah, it was fun. I did love finding her. I always — I’m in a show where my character has a sword and that’s just an  — it’s a very — it has similar lines but it’s a very different weapon and she’s also, she’s probably more like Nakia. She’s more like getting it done, you know, whereas the idea of stepping into a character who’s connected to this traditional ancient way of moving was really amazing and I loved how they found that for each of us and then they put that into it in training and helped us and then we found it and we owned our characters around that, those movements. 

 

LN: The training was a big part of getting into character because understanding how someone fights reveals a lot about, you know, what their values are and who they are and so when we were first talking about Nakia’s fighting style Ryan said to me she’s street and that was really all I needed so by any means 

necessary she will use any weapon. Like the Dora Milaje, they don’t use guns but Nakia has no problem using guns, you know. She will use her shoe. She will use whatever. She will grab whatever it takes to get the job done and just and then that again is another way that when we put together we stand in solidarity, you know. 

 

We occupy our own space and then going into battle together everyone has a different strength to bring to the table and I think that was just such a — it was a very, it was a way to make fighting extremely rich, you know, and full of culture in and of itself. You know, it’s very specific. 

 

 

Q: You have both brought very female characters to life on screen. I don’t think I would be strong enough to turn down the king like you did at the beginning but can you talk about what it takes to bring these characters to life? I know it’s acting but it represents what we wanna see in ourselves and see on screen. You guys do it in a way that’s so authentic. What is your process in creating these characters? 

 

 LN: Well I think for both of us especially when we’re dealing with African representation in story we feel such a strong sense of responsibility and desire, deep desire to see African women on screen that look and feel like we know them to be. And so with these characters we wanted them to be women that 

we know and like the women that I know are complex and they’re deep and they’re about something other than just the man in their lives and so I think that was really important to us. It was also really important to Ryan as well to have women who are standing in their own in this movie because personally and I 

know Danai so well because I know her so well women with agency and strength and strength does not mean an absence of vulnerability but it means that you understand, you have it in yourself to get yourself through things, you know, to seek help, you know, what I mean that is strength in itself is a very 

complex idea, you know, and so it was important to us that the women however, whoever and however many lines you have that you come across as being full and that’s not hard if you just, if you commit to expressing humanity.

 

I commend Ryan for this because in the end his story is not about punchlines and quips and things to make it fun and enjoyable and yet it’s still fun and enjoyable but there’s an integrity to these people. You know, we really get a sense of what Wakanda’s society is like and we see a society where men 

and women are participating fully in the development of the nation and in so doing they’re reaching their full potential and that’s good for everybody. 

 

 

Q: I noticed that hair in culture seem to be a beauty statement and they brought it to where we are today with the current, you know, natural styles and things like that. Can you give us a little bit more because you said you had to shave your head and you adapted to getting used to it and I did the same and now I have a different crown but the crown is different to women of color and it’s a huge statement in this film. 

 

DG: Yeah, I mean I think the beauty is, you know, it’s such a celebration and I think that that’s what’s so powerful to me about it because I don’t think as I was saying, you know, you often don’t see Africanisms celebrated and so I think that completely connects with the hair. I love what the hair department and the costume department did. They really pulled from real actual cultures and ethnic differentiations and how hair is celebrated across the continent traditionally and currently and, you know, I think there is something really powerful about all the ways that hair was represented there because I think there are so many things that tell us, you know, the thing that tells those of African descent or, you know, people who get categorized as the other that there’s one way that they should actually manifest themselves in society in order to be accepted or acceptable. 

 

I mean it’s an argument I still hear every time I go to Zimbabwe sometimes. It’s like oh, my god they had dreadlocks and I don’t want to go to work with dreadlocks. It’s gotten thinner and thinner but it’s something that still needs to get addressed sometimes and there’s some issues even like we thought 

somethings we dealt with in the 60s. We thought we got with black is beautiful. We thought we got it and we haven’t. You know, it keeps coming back sometimes so I love that there are so many manifestations of that sort of expressions and, you know, with Nakia, Nakia’s got her little knots and then she’s got a fro, you know, what I mean and then and Okoye loves her bald head! 

 

It’s just like I loved that and like just this differentiation of expression and it all is like, you know, something that, you know, there’s things that only, you know, sometimes there’s something that only sisters can do. We can do the most with our hair than anybody really you know I mean and we can go bald too and it works. I think that is a celebration we’ve rarely seen exhibited in such splendor so that really excites me for people to see. 

Many thanks to Danai and Lupita for sitting with us to answer some of our questions, and we look forward to seeing the great success of Black Panther when it hits theaters February 16!