By now, Marvel movies are virtually the only thing in Hollywood that can guarantee a hit—but the unprecedented anticipation for Black Panther promises something new. An Africa-set tale, and the first Marvel Studios effort to star anyone but a white man, Black Panther is set to upend expectations as well as box-office records.
The film’s biggest surprise, however, is still lying in wait. In a cast brimming with multiple Oscar winners and nominees, it’s 24-year-old newcomer Letitia Wright as Black Panther’s younger sister, Shuri, who walks away with the show. Shuri is a tech-savvy teenage princess who is Peter Parker, Tony Stark, and Q from Bond all rolled into one. Black Panther producer Nate Moore called T’Challa’s science-minded little sister the “smartest person in the world”—smarter even than Tony Stark and Peter Parker. But for all her exceptional brilliance Shuri, as Wright plays her, is also shockingly normal. As an otherworldly Wakandan war wages around her, Shuri is recognizable as a teasing little sister there to keep her big brother both safe and in check.
Described by director Ryan Coogler as “the love and the light” of the movie, Shuri is only the beginning for Wright, who in a four-month span will have given an arresting turn in December’s Black Mirror finale, appeared as the evocatively named Jules Skateboarder in January’s Liam Neeson thriller The Commuter, stolen every scene in Black Panther, and, as of March, starred in a bona fide Steven Spielberg blockbuster, Ready Player One. Not a bad Hollywood debut for an actress with mostly British TV credits to her name.
A few days after the Black Panther premiere, Wright arrives at the Montage Beverly Hills wearing an olive green suit and the slightly dazed expression of someone who has just survived a Marvel movie P.R. blitz. She’s quick to give credit elsewhere when it comes to the overwhelmingly positive early response to her performance: “I think we’re equal!” she protests when considering whether she or Walking Dead star Danai Gurira, who plays the wry warrior Okoye, earned the most laughter and applause from audiences. “I honestly never even thought people would find me or my character funny.”
But there is one realm where Wright will happily wear the crown. Explaining that she, Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, and other members of her Black Panther family would engage in rap battles between takes on the set, Wright was pleased to announce she always won. “Danai tried a lot, but she failed, epically. . . . I’m still the queen of rap battle in Wakanda.”
And it’s only the beginning of Wright’s time in the Marvel Universe. Shuri is slated to appear in May’s Avengers: Infinity War, with more films almost certain to come from there. When most of the Marvel Universe stars gathered for a Vanity Fair photo shoot in August, Tessa Thompson famously marshaled a group of female stars to approach Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and demand an all-female superhero team-up movie. Wright wasn’t part of that conversation, she says. “I think I was in the corner talking to Chris Pratt about God or something. I think I was teasing him because he’s my favorite.”
Still, it’s impossible, in this post-Wakanda world, to consider a lineup of bold Marvel women and not include Shuri on the list. In the comics, Shuri eventually succeeds her brother as Black Panther. Though it could easily be a decade before that happens on the screen, Shuri’s already a top choice among fans to headline her own movie, whether as Black Panther or even taking up the mantle of Iron Man after Robert Downey Jr.’s long-anticipated retirement.
And Wright is happy to spitball a spin-off teaming her innovative princess up with everyone’s favorite web-slinger, Peter Parker. She spins out a story that includes Shuri “mocking” Peter and Tony for their “outdated” tech, grabbing a slice with Tom Holland, “and then I’ll probably help him with his suit and try to improve it behind Tony Stark’s back. I think that would be a good plot for a new movie.” After all, as Wright points out, she and Holland are among the few Avengers under the age of 30. With Marvel planning out its cinematic universe for more than a decade at least, the time to plant seeds for a new generation is already here.
The path to superhero royalty began with a spelling bee. Having immigrated from Guyana to London when she was 7, and using her boundless energy and uncanny knack for mimicry to shake the new-kid stigma, Wright was a young teenager when she first saw Keke Palmer in the 2006 indie Akeelah and the Bee. Palmer’s “nerdy” but “cool” bespectacled character sparked something in Wright—not just the acting bug, but a desire to show audiences a new kind of relatable character, something she hopes to pass on to young fans with Black Panther.
Her parents weren’t immediately sold on the idea of a teenage Wright throwing herself entirely into acting: “In my country where I was born, Guyana, we push more for education. . . . It’s more being a lawyer, doctor, teacher, or scientist. So it was something I had to just really prove—not only to myself, but to my parents, that I could do it, and I can make a living from it, and that I was kind of good at it.” Now, even her mother agrees: she’s good at it.
Wright attended London’s Identity School of Acting, a relatively recently established multicultural program that was formed in response to some of the mustier art schools in town; it boasts John Boyega and Wright among its notable alumni. The teenaged Wright was rushing full-steam ahead to land roles in British TV and theater, but she wasn’t equipped to handle the crippling depression that hit her at the age of 20.
Wright is one of a new breed of actresses who, perhaps inspired by the outspokenness of another atypical Disney princess—Carrie Fisher—isn’t afraid to talk about once-taboo subjects like mental health. “I was in the dark going through so many bad things, when the world didn’t know about Shuri and Letitia and whatever is happening now,” she says. And she’s equally unafraid to talk about what pulled her out.
As the rare young star whose social-media messages are bursting with praise for a God she credits for her success, Wright says she’s not “going to hide” her religious beliefs from the world. “Everybody has their thing that they’re truthful about. My thing is just a love of God . . . so that’s what I’m going to do.” When asked how she prepares for any given scene, be it comedy or tragedy, Wright simply says, “I pray.”
Wright came to Christianity after attending a London actors’ Bible study with fellow Identity graduate Malachi Kirby (Roots, Black Mirror) at the height of her depression. Her immersion in her newfound religion was so strong that Wright walked away from a role in a Nicole Kidman-Elle Fanning film, most likely How to Talk to Girls at Parties, in order to focus on her relationship with God. When it came time to tackle her career with newfound commitment in 2015, she ran to it full tilt—and hasn’t stopped since.
Scottish director Michael Caton-Jones, who cast a 15-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio in 1993’s This Boy’s Life, put Wright in his 2015 film Urban Hymn, playing an angry young woman with a gift for song. That performance put Wright on the radar for Spielberg and Marvel—but first, she took a turn on the West End in Eclipsed, a play about Liberian rebel soldiers written by none other than her future Black Panther co-star Danai Gurira. When the play moved to Broadway, Wright’s role was played by yet another future Wakandan, Lupita Nyong’o.
Wright calls this a “triangular, crazy connection,” but it also says something about the often limited opportunities for actresses of color unwilling to settle for stereotypical roles. Black Panther—with its myriad of multifaceted characters—could go a long way toward burying those stereotypes once and for all. “Everybody else has three-dimensional characters,” Wright points out. “Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters are all well-rounded and sort of ultra-cool, you know?”
And like her Black Panther co-star Michael B. Jordan, who is producing and starring in an upcoming adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, Wright knows she needs to take things into her own hands. “I have to also get into producing if I want to see these stories being made. . . . Let’s venture out and do projects with people of different ethnicities. Not just black, but also Asian actors and Asian superhero films. Just an equality across the board.”
Wright say she’s already eager to prove she can do even more; she name checks Big Little Lies as the kind of series she’d do to surprise people once again. But for now, she’s created Shuri, who is already well on her way to being some other actor’s Akeelah (without the bee). After a packed advance screening of Black Panther in Los Angeles last week, two young boys went bounding ahead of the crowd leaping for joy and punching the warm night air. They weren’t pretending to be Black Panther, or even another Wakandan warrior. They were pretending to be Shuri.
