"Black Panther" Cast Covers ESSENCE

Watch The Wakandan Throne: The ‘Black Panther’ Cast Covers ESSENCE

- By Bossip Staff
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Wakanda forever!

“Black Panther” Cast Covers ESSENCE

The entire leading cast in Ryan Coogler’s Marvel masterpiece is bringing their Wakandan excellence to ESSENCE. Chadwick Boseman, Forest Whitaker, Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright are covering the mag’s March issue that has three different covers.

In the article dubbed Watch the Throne, the cast and creatives expound on Wakanda being brought to life on the big screen.

DANAI GURIRA ON WHAT THE ROLE MEANT TO HER:

“The idea of creating a scenario where you’re seeing very powerful, empowered Africans is really thrilling to me, something my heart, soul and spirit yearned to see…”

LUPITA NYONG’O ON THE WONDER OF WAKANDA:

“For me, as an African in this film, to walk on set and to see these incredible costumes and hairdos, these are the things I grew up seeing, but they’ve just been elevated to a fantastical place. We’re going to experience the richness of the continent, because the continent is what has informed us of what Wakanda could be…”

ANGELA BASSETT ON PLAYING A QUEEN [Excerpt]:

“When Angela Bassett received the call from [director] Coogler asking if she would play T’Challa’s stepmother, Queen Ramona, she had never heard of the character. ‘…Just to have an opportunity to portray that image—me, a little Black girl from the Florida projects. Playing a queen was just unattainable, unavailable. Even in a fictitious world, a Black woman cannot be a queen,’ she scoffs. ‘Why can’t I be?…’”

The Black Panther covers are part of their annual Black Women in Hollywood issue that features ESSENCE’s 2018 honorees; Danai Gurira, Tiffany Haddish, Lena Waithe and Tessa Thompson.They’ll be honored Thursday, March 1st, at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, CA.

The March issue of ESSENCE hits newsstands on 2/23.

More on the flip.

Dennis Leupold/ESSENCE

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