I was invited by Disney/Marvel to attend the #BlackPantherEvent. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This week I have been sharing some of our interviews with the Black Panther cast! Today I am sharing our first interview that was with Daniel Kaluuya who plays W’Kabi and Letitia Wright who plays Shuri, T’Challa’s little sister who happens to be one of my favorites from the movie since she is both smart and knows how to fight!

When these two entered the room it was all smiles! Our interview started off with talking about the clothes ,shoes and hair. Letitia tells us “I didn’t like dresses to begin with like, not that I didn’t, I hated them. But, I just, I didn’t really, I wasn’t really like super girly when I started Panther”. That all changed though when costumer designer Ruth E. Carter brought her into the fitting room and started fitting dresses on her. “She’s like, ‘we’re gonna make your body look like, like she’s gonna to fit it to my body,’ and then their like, then I’ll be like, damn”.

We had to ask about the hair since Letitia’s has some pretty cool braids in the movie. Letitia tells us that Nikki Wright pretty much created all the styles and that they all had settled on braids which she had never had before.

In Black Panther Daniel Kaluuya plays the part of W’Kabi who is the head of security for Wakanda’s Border Tribe. Princess Shuri is not only an innovator that is responsible for creating Wakanda’s modern technology, she can also fight. We had to ask what kind of things did they do to prepare for the movie since they both have physical roles. Daniel tells us that they did a lot of sword training, that they had to learn from scratch and he thought it was amazing because everyone had to have their own fighting style. “Everyone had their own fighting style that reflects their character“.

Since we had just seen these two at the Black Panther World Premiere the night before we had to ask how has it been on social media after (the premiere) and did they get any funny tweets. Letitia had a funny response at first, “He’s, he’s, he’s, he’s ghost on social”. She then says “I’m trying to be a semi-ghost. So, you know what that means is that I really want to have one but I don’t want anyone to pretend to be me. I just put a few pictures up so people know it’s me”. Daniel told us that he had a year of people pretending to be him and Letitia spoke up saying “Yeah. See. This is why I did it. And then I put a few pictures up so people know it’s me but to be honest we haven’t, I’ve seen a few, like here and there. Like, you’d see, just spots of friends”.

I think Princess Shuri is going to be a role model for many girls around the globe! She is one of my FAVORITES from the movie and I want to share one of my favorite questions that was asked during our interview.

Question For Letitia: I think so many people are just so excited about being represented in a film and so for us this is just, it’s such an amazing accomplishment. But, you are representing a black princess on film. And you are modernizing in a way that girls I think around the world, and boys too, are gonna be so excited about. Did you even think about approaching this is as like, ‘wow, I’m actually gonna be inspiring people and I’m gonna be a black princess on screen.’

Here is her response about her role as a black princess on screen…

Letitia Wright: It’s crazy because this film is pretty much years of prayer and there was a powerful man because this is something I would pray when I was a teenager just getting into acting, like, whatever I do, I just want to be a vessel to be of inspiration. Doesn’t have to necessarily mean that that character is not flawed or perfect or has to be a perfect character but just to inspire. But, this opportunity, when this came up, I understood the magnitude of Shuri in this, in the comic books. I understood where her arc is and where her journey is and it’s huge. But, what I had to do was take her, a dose out of like books and just be humble. And just like, just be like, ‘okay cool, this is, don’t think like that.’ I understood what was gonna be happening, I understood the magnitude of the film, I understood that I’m standing with Daniel, Lupita, Chad, Ryan, like Michael, I understand what was going. I could see what was going on and I could see what would be the result, so what I tried to do was just play, tell the truth and that something can, with, within myself I always try to do throughout my whole, my whole time acting so far.

These two were a real joy to be around and I wish our interview would have lasted longer. These two know how to put on a performance on the big screen and also bring laughter and smiles when you have them in a conference room too! Luckily we got a group picture to capture the moment!