Black Panther star “Letitia Wright” Sends a Message to Younger Girls

The success of Black Panther has made the movie $1 Billion dollars in less than one month. One woman who stood out in the film was Letitia Wright. She has earned praise for her roles in films such as Black Mirror and Black Museum. In the recent film, Wright plays Shuri, the sister to the Black Panther. In a recent interview with ABC News, she spoke about many things including: meeting with Chadwick Boseman, being seen as a role model, and how giving up her acting career was almost an option.

“When I first met him, I fell in love with my brother, I knew that his soul and mine connected in that sense where we had each others backs,” she said in an interview on Popcorn with Peter Travers. “So those scenes on set were so much fun. Even when the cameras were off, I would still be practicing how i’m going to pick on him. It’s just a natural connection that you guys can see.”

Peter Travers went on to ask her how it felt knowing young African American girls, would see her as a role model. “What I would love, instead of being a role model, is being someone of inspiration. If I can be an inspiration to anyone to go after their goals and their dreams, then I feel like i’ll be satisfied with that.” Wright herself was inspired by another black actress. “I stumbled upon ‘Akeelah and the Bee’ with Keke Palmer. I obsessed over it. I bought the DVD. And I still have it to this day,” she told Travers. “She represented a young black girl that I didn’t see before. She represented me, and I wanted to do that in terms of acting.”

Wright also expressed how passionate she is about wanting teens to feel like she did as a teen. “It’s a privilege to be able to have such a character that a young girl can look back on, watch this film and be like, ‘Hey, I might want to be a scientist. I want to be in technology’. Yeah I think that’s amazing. Now for Shuri, it’s like a full 360 of that moment where someone else can look at Shuri. They can look at her and say, ‘she’s playing a scientist, someone who is into engineering and math and I want to be like that.’ so hopefully that’s another full 360 for someone else”.

She also spoke about almost giving up her acting career. “I was in a difficult place. I was in a place where I wasn’t really happy. I didn’t have true happiness within myself. And that was following me for years,” she said. “It was just nagging at me to really find out where I could find real joy, real happiness, real peace. And I decided to stop acting and find my way with God and my relationship with God. I kind of started all over. I thought acting would not be in alignment with being a Christian. I was praying and I felt peace within my spirit to go back to acting. Then everything else that followed is the result, such as Shuri”.

Williams, An