adminLOS ANGELES. – In Marvel’s latest superhero movie, the nation of Wakanda faces a new threat from an underwater community called the Talokan, and when Danai learned of this in the script, she found herself an Olympic-level swimming trainer to prepare for those scenes.
“As I’m sure you’ve seen in the previews, there’s a little bit of water in this movie. So when I heard that, I hadn’t read the script, but I went and found this Olympic-trainer swimming coach,” she said in a cover interview with The Cut.
“I was like, ‘Teach me everything.’ It wasn’t really necessary to go in like that, but I went all in. It was really fun to really work at improving my stroke and to see improvement and transformation in my technique and in my speed.”
The Walking Dead star, who plays warrior Okoye in the franchise, sent a video of her progress to director Ryan Coogler and he was “in shock” over her swimming skills.
Elsewhere in the interview, the 44-year-old shared that returning to the set where Wakanda’s tribal council hold meetings was particularly emotional for her following the death of her co-star Chadwick Boseman.
“You didn’t know how and when the grief would hit you. Walking into the tribal council room – a room from the first movie where the throne is and all the counsellors sit around it – was very emotional for me, and I didn’t expect it to be.
“You just can’t anticipate those sorts of things because the last time we were there, it had been with him,” she stated.
The sequel to 2018’s hit film sees Wakanda mourning the loss of King T’Challa, directly impacting Okoye’s role leading the Dora Milaje.
Like all the characters in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Okoye finds herself in a “shift.”
“She’s going through loss and grief,” Gurira tells Wills in the interview.
“That journey and how to navigate it … people just don’t know how they are going to respond to that. I think she is a key example of that, being someone whose literal role is to be an anchor for the nation and protector for the nation and someone who is literally in charge of its utter security.”
Okoye, of course, is the general of the Dora Milaje, the front lines of the Wakandan armed forces.
The loss of King T’Challa shifts the entire nation of Wakana and, consequently, Okoye’s role. – msn/YahooNEWS
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter