Marvel Comics first introduced its audiences to Black Panther in “Fantastic Four Vol. 1” Issue 52, published in 1966, and the character (brought to the pages by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby) was soon firmly established as a fan favorite that crossed racial and cultural lines. After being welcomed into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, the young African prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), aka Black Panther, must now take on the mantle of king and superhero, as he fights to protect the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda and its people.

At a conference at the film’s Los Angeles press junket, co-stars Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o (“Nakia”), Danai Gurira (“Okoye”) and Letitia Wright (“Shuri”), along with director Ryan Coogler and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, talked about why Boseman was Marvel’s only choice for Black Panther, balancing making a blockbuster with having something meaningful to say, exploring very relevant social themes, the comic books they pulled from, the powerful women of Wakanda, why the choice was made for Black Panther to speak with an African accent, and what they hope little girls walk away with, after seeing this film.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Question: Chadwick, when you got the call to play Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, did you know that you’d be doing this film?

CHADWICK BOSEMAN: The initial phone call from Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Nate Moore and the Russo Brothers was one where they essentially said, “We want to bring your character into the Marvel Comic Universe, as a stand-alone, but this is the best way to introduce him, in Civil War.” So, I was aware of it. When I was shooting Civil War, I was not aware that other people weren’t aware that this was going to happen because it was at the forefront of my mind. So, I’m sorry that you didn’t know that, but at the same time, I love the fact that it was a surprise to people.

Kevin, why did you want Chadwick Boseman for Black Panther?

KEVIN FEIGE: I think you hear people say this all the time, when you’re in a setting like this, but he was the only choice. It may not have been this fast, but in my memory, we were sitting around a table, coming up with the story for Civil War, Nate Moore, our executive producer, suggested bringing in Black Panther because we were looking for a third party who wouldn’t necessarily side with Cap or side with Iron Man. And almost instantly, we all said Chadwick. In my memory, although maybe it was the next day, we got him on a speaker phone right then, and he was in the back of a limo in Switzerland.

BOSEMAN: We were in Zurich. I was coming off of the red carpet for Get On Up and my agent was like, “You’ve gotta get on the phone.” The crazy thing is that I didn’t even have international calling on my phone, until that morning. Somebody said, “Hey, get international on your phone and call your mom.” And then, that night, he called.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Ryan, with Black Panther, you walk a line between being a big-budget blockbuster Marvel film and having something really deep and meaningful to say. How did you balance that?

RYAN COOGLER: I grew up loving comic books and pop culture. I loved toys, actions figures, video games, and all of that stuff. When I got older and realized that I wanted to make movies, that’s how I fell in love with internationalism and cinema that left you with something to chew on and think about. I think the best versions of those stories do both things. So, for me, I sat down with Marvel, after speaking with (executive producer) Nate [Moore] over the phone, and I was very honest with Kevin. You think of Marvel like this big, huge studio. It’s the biggest studio in the world right now, but it’s really just Kevin and his two friends. That’s really all it is. It’s these two really smart people that he writes with – Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso – and on this film, it was Nate. They’re all very different from each other, and Kevin is at the head of that. I told him, “I want to make a film that works on every level that your films work on, and I want to make it with these themes.” And he was like, “Great! Let’s go!” I didn’t expect that. But as I got to know these guys, especially specifically Kevin, that’s what he’s all about. He’s all about making something that entertains people and that works, as a piece of entertainment that leaves you with something to think about. He was very encouraging. I was getting notes, while we were working on this, that were about making it more interesting and pushing it.

Kevin, how far did you want to take this while still presenting a lot of very relevant social themes, like isolationism and other societal issues?

FEIGE: For the most part, Ryan wrote this a year and a half to two years ago. This have just happened in the world, which make the film seem more relevant, but there are other things in the film that have been relevant for centuries. The truth of the matter is that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and the whole Marvel bullpen, created Wakanda, T’Challa and Black Panther, and made him a smarter, more accomplished character than any of the other white characters, in the mid 1960s. They had the guts to do that then, and the least we can do is live up to that and allow this story to be told the way it needed to be told, and not shy away from things that the Marvel founders didn’t shy away from, in the height of the Civil Rights Era.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Ryan, what comic books did you pull from to develop your version of these characters?

COOGLER: We actually pulled from all of them. You can go to our film and see something in there from probably every writer that has touched T’Challa’s character in the Black Panther comics. We grabbed from all of them. The character’s got a long history, and it’s such rich stuff to mine. Each writer left their own mark on it and each run left something for us to pull from, but we pulled from absolutely all of them.

For the ladies of Wakanda, how proud are you to bring and see such powerful, beautiful and regal women in this?

LUPITA NYONG’O: I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and I’m just so, so, so excited. This is a movie that we all feel a lot of ownership of, and that we thoroughly enjoyed making. When you make a movie like this, of this scale, so much happens between the time you perform it and the time you see it, with all the computer graphics stuff. Wakanda was built in a room with Ryan [Coogler] and the incredible design team, so to see it alive and almost three-dimensional was what I was looking forward to.

DANAI GURIRA: When Ryan sat me down and talked to me about his vision, and the story, the characters and the women, I was just floored because you don’t actually get to hear that often. You don’t actually get sat down and hear that type of a vision. And it embodied us being women on the continent, but very developed and very complex. It was amazing. I was like, “I just want to watch this. I get to be in it?!” And then, I got to see it come to life, with these astounding women that I started training with. I was the first one to get my head shaved. In theory, it sounded amazing. And then, the day came and I was like, “That’s today?!” I had a ‘fro, and then it happened. I’d go into the restroom to wash my hands, look up and go, “What the?!” It took a few days, and then all the girls started coming in. We were all balded, one by one, and then the pride started to grow. It was about embracing the symbol of power in these women and the beauty of that moment. I loved that moment where she doesn’t want a wig. She doesn’t want to cover up. This is her joy and her pride, walking in with that bald head and that tattoo on it. It’s so subversive, in the right way. You don’t have to have hair to be beautiful. There are so many great things I could say about how Ryan developed these women characters and allowed us to collaborate. I just feel really blessed and excited about it.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Is Shuri smarter than Black Panther?

LETITIA WRIGHT: What I love about it is that the men are always behind the women. No one is undermined by the men being like, “You shouldn’t be in technology. You shouldn’t be in math.” They’re like, “No, go ahead.” T’Challa is like, “Go ahead, sis. This is your department. This is your domain. Kill it. I’m gonna work with you to finalize it.” That’s the mentality of the king, and that’s brilliant. Everybody’s got their own lane. She’s cooler than him, but not smarter than him.

BOSEMAN: When you talk about what Wakanda is and what it would have to be, in order to progress to the place that we saw, even though we’re talking about the fantasy idea of an unconquered nation that has not been tampered with, the idea of the next generation being smarter and better than you is a concept that they would have evolved to. Even though they’re from the same generation and she’s his younger sister, she benefits from whatever he has reached. You want your sons and daughters to be better than you were. That concept is a Wakandan concept. My older siblings raised me. You see the genius that is inside the people that come after you. If you have an ancestor around, they’re looking at you like, “I know you’re looking up to me, but we’re looking up to you.” That is an African concept.

Letitia, what was your favorite weapon or gadget of Shuri’s?

WRIGHT: I think T’Challa’s suit is quite beautiful, but I think the gauntlets are pretty dope because they’re her personal little thing. They’re her kitty-cat paws, and she can do some damage. I loved those.

Chadwick, why was it so important to you that Black Panther speak in an African accent?

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Image via Disney/Marvel

BOSEMAN: As an actor, when you’re trained, you’re very often trained from a European perspective. What is considered great or classical is very often British, and it’s certain writers. I went to Oxford to study, but I also went to Howard, and we were taught to respect our writers and our classics, just as much. You have to tell the stories that allow you to be true to yourself, as an artist. There was a time period where people were asking me questions about whether or not an audience could sit through a movie with a lead character who spoke with that accent, but that was not Kevin. So, I became adamant about the fact that that is not true. The intonations and melodies inside an African accent are just as classical as a British one or a European one, and all of the emotions and aspects of a character can be shown through that accent. We have to take this opportunity to show that. If he had never been conquered, if his ancestors had never been conquered, and if Wakanda is what it is, he doesn’t have to go to Oxford to study. He doesn’t have to go to Cambridge or Yale, or any place. He actually got his education at home, so he would not then assimilate a language that is the colonizer’s language, in order to speak to his people. He had to speak with an African accent.

What do you hope little girls walk away with, after seeing this film?

NYONG’O: What I love about the way this film represents women is that each and every one of us is an individual. We’re unique and we all have our own sense of power and agency. We hold our own space without being pitted against each other, and I think that’s a very, very powerful message to send to children, both male and female. Oftentimes, in movies, we fall into that trap where there’s very few women, and we are against each other. There’s a competitive spirit, and this film freezes all that. We see women going about their business and supporting each other, even arguing with each other and having different points of view, but still not being against each other. I think that’s extremely important. In this film, there are so many of us. We really get a sense of the fabric of Wakanda, as a nation. We see women alongside men, and we see how much more effective a society can be, if they allow women to explore their full potential.

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Image via Marvel Studios

COOGLER: This film has involvement from brilliant women, all over it, from start to finish. Kevin’s right hand is Louis D’Esposito, but his left hand is Victoria Alonso, who is amazing. She was there, from day one. We just hired the best person for the job. The women weren’t hired because they were women. They were hired because they were the best for the job. That was our cinematographer, Rachel Morrison, our costume designer, Ruth Carter, our production designer, Hannah Beachler, and our assistant director, Lisa Satriano. In post-production, the film was edited by Michael Shawver and Debbie Berman, who is from South Africa. And throughout the process, Victoria raised her hand. I was incredibly blessed to have these people, to have their perspective, and to have their fingerprints, all over it. Half the population is women, and it was there, constantly and in full effect.

Black Panther opens in theaters on February 16th.

For more of our coverage on Black Panther, be sure to check out the following links:

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