Who is Letitia Wright? The ‘Black Panther’ breakout star is just getting started
Born in Guyana and raised in London, the 24-year-old prepared for her blockbuster role by watching documentaries about young African women in the STEM fields
“My voice is all gone,” said Letitia Wright. “I sound like a hoarse-y man.”
While the sentiment was a bit of an exaggeration, Wright was beginning to go hoarse after a week of nonstop press for Marvel’s highly anticipated Black Panther.
In the film (now playing in theatres), Wright shines as Shuri, King T’Challa’s 16-year-old sister and the princess of the fictional African country of Wakanda. (With a short, asymmetrical haircut and delicate features, the 24-year-old convincingly passes for a teenager.)
“People her age are not usually put in charge of things,” Wright said of Shuri. “You have to look to the adults all the time.”
As described on the film’s promotional posters, Shuri is T’Challa’s right-hand woman (well, one of them) and very much her brother’s keeper.
“It’s a lot of love and loyalty between them and they have each other’s backs,” she said. “He’s got her and she’s got him. They’re royalty, but there’s still something about them which the world can relate to. They make a good team.”
“People keep saying this thing about Shuri being the Q to T’Challa like in James Bond,” she continued. “She looks out for him and she protects him. She also tells him the truth.”
Besides being next in line to the throne, Shuri also happens to be a tech genius, fashioning all of Black Panther’s vibranium tech out of her own lab.
“I stayed very closely with the script,” Wright said of how she prepared for the role. “I trusted what Ryan [Coogler] and Joe [Robert Cole] were going to be doing with it. And I didn’t look at the comic books because I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by the fact that she has such an important part in the Wakandan world.”