At a BFI London Film Festival event at Soho’s Picturehouse Central, Daniel Kaluuya talked about Chadwick Boseman’s guidance during ‘Black Panther.’
“Meeting Chad was a pivotal moment in my life,” the actor said. “I remember we had a dinner. He could see my life was changing, and I didn’t know. He leaned in — and I was about to go on a press run, and I didn’t have a publicist.”
He continued, “[Boseman] big bro-ed me, he helped me out. Then ‘Get Out’ came out, and he did a speech on my birthday, it was so poignant. He was an incredible leader on set.”
Boseman passed away in 2020 at age 43 from colon cancer. Kaluuya, who won an Oscar for ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ acted with Boseman in 2018’s ‘Black Panther.’ This was before Kaluuya’s big break in Hollywood with the 2017 horror film ‘Get Out.’
In 2022, Kaluuya said it’s hard to talk about ‘Black Panther’ without feeling the weight of losing Boseman. The actor shared, “What can you say? Legit, and I mean that in a real sense, what can you say? Watching him do the first one, knowing what I know, knowing what everyone [now knows], you just look at him in a different stratosphere – as a character, as a human being.”
Kaluuya also previously revealed that he supports the choice to not replace T’Challa in the ‘Black Panther’ franchise following the death of Boseman. He noted, “So for me, the importance is not the Black Panther legacy, the importance is the legacy of Chadwick Boseman, because that’s a human being and a spirit that’s real, you feel me?”
The actor added, “How can we honor that? Black Panther is going to do what Black Panther does, but that’s a man that lived for us. He did it for us, our nephews, our nieces, our kids. It’s our duty to honor that man the way he honored us.”
Boseman’s death was a shock to the industry, and the 2022 sequel to ‘Black Panther, Wakanda Forever,’ honored him and his T’Challa.
