D23 Expo 2022: Winston Duke talks Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
During the recent D23 Expo 2022 in Anaheim, Blackfilmandtv.com correspondent Julian Cannon spoke with Winston Duke, who’s back to reprise his role as M’Baku in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Hitting theaters on November 11, the film is once again directed by talented American filmmaker Ryan Coogler, director of the films Fruitvale Station, Creed, and the first Black Panther movie, as well as a producer on Judas and the Black Messiah.
Following the death of Chadwick Boseman, who played T'Challa, the ensemble cast for this film include Letitia Wright as Shuri, Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Winston Duke as M'Baku, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Michaela Coel as Aneka, Tenoch Huerta as Namor of Atlantis, Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, and Angela Bassett returning as Ramonda.
Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M'Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje, fight to protect their nation of Wakanda from intervening world powers in the wake of King T'Challa's death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda.
How are you feeling about this?
Winston Duke: Man, I'm exceptionally excited. It's gonna be really cool. It's a much bigger movie than Black Panther one. So in scale and size, just more everything more action adventure, fun family, it's an expansion of the entire world. It's a neat new characters, but dive back into the ones that you love already. So more M’Baku surely Nakia, Ramona, you know? So it's a lot.
What is gonna be the overall message when it comes to this film moving forward?
Winston Duke: It's about how a family moves forward. And I mean, like family in a big macro sense, you know, it's how they deal with great tragedy, and how they look forward. It's a really powerful thing that I think we could all use today, because we're all dealing with great transitions. The world has been a wild place for the last three years. And we're all figuring out how we move forward. So in that way, those characters are doing the same.
How intense was the stunt work?
Winston Duke: Super intense. I mean, all these movies, the entire MCU style of movies is very physically intensive. So you know, we train a lot. And then we perform really big stunts and a really big things because as much as it's rooted in the story, the action really propels the story for the audience. So they lean into that. It was a lot. It was great.