03-03-2018, 03:52 PM
Amandla Stenberg Walked Away from Black Panther for a Very Thoughtful Reason
The actor auditioned for the role of Shuri, but dropped out after realizing “there are spaces that I should not take up.”
![[Image: Amandla-Stenberg.jpg]](https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/5a996ae49028ff3af11a1a1f/master/w_768,c_limit/Amandla-Stenberg.jpg)
It seems unfathomable that any actor would walk away from a potential role in Black Panther. The Marvel superhero movie isn’t just a massive blockbuster—it’s the cultural event of the year thus far. But it seems there is one actor who would pass up on this once-in-a-lifetime gig: in a recent CBC interview, Amandla Stenberg revealed that they auditioned for the role of Shuri—which ultimately went to breakout star Letitia Wright—but bowed out of the running for a very thoughtful reason.
“One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from Black Panther,” Stenberg, who uses “they/them” pronouns, revealed. “I got really, really close and they were like, ‘Do you want to continue fighting for this?’ And I was like, this isn’t right.”
In the film, Shuri is T’Challa’s genius little sister, the teen whiz who keeps Wakanda so technologically advanced. Like the rest of the principal cast, Letitia Wright is a dark-skinned black actor. Stenberg, who is bi-racial, said they wouldn’t have been a natural fit for the film.
“These are all dark-skinned actors playing Africans, and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a bi-racial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I’m the same color as everyone else in the movie,” Stenberg said. “That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognize 100 percent that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it’s because I’ve thought really, really critically about it and I’ve consulted people I really trust and it feels right.”
Stenberg isn’t the first star to walk away from a superhero movie for ethical reasons. Actor Ed Skrein, who is white, dropped out of the Hellboy reboot last year when he realized the character he was playing was actually Japanese-American in the original comic books. “Representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people,” he said in a much-circulated tweet explaining his decision. The role was later filled by actor Daniel Dae Kim, who is Korean-American. Kim later posted a photo of the two of them chumming it up at a restaurant, presumably bonding over movies and their perfectly chiseled cheekbones.
Even without Black Panther, Stenberg’s profile has been on the rise over the last few years, thanks to their outspokenness about activism and busy slate. Their next project is The Hate U Give, the adaptation of Angie Thomas’s bestseller about a teen girl coping with police brutality.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/amandla-stenberg-black-panther
The actor auditioned for the role of Shuri, but dropped out after realizing “there are spaces that I should not take up.”
“One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from Black Panther,” Stenberg, who uses “they/them” pronouns, revealed. “I got really, really close and they were like, ‘Do you want to continue fighting for this?’ And I was like, this isn’t right.”
In the film, Shuri is T’Challa’s genius little sister, the teen whiz who keeps Wakanda so technologically advanced. Like the rest of the principal cast, Letitia Wright is a dark-skinned black actor. Stenberg, who is bi-racial, said they wouldn’t have been a natural fit for the film.
“These are all dark-skinned actors playing Africans, and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a bi-racial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I’m the same color as everyone else in the movie,” Stenberg said. “That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognize 100 percent that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it’s because I’ve thought really, really critically about it and I’ve consulted people I really trust and it feels right.”
Stenberg isn’t the first star to walk away from a superhero movie for ethical reasons. Actor Ed Skrein, who is white, dropped out of the Hellboy reboot last year when he realized the character he was playing was actually Japanese-American in the original comic books. “Representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people,” he said in a much-circulated tweet explaining his decision. The role was later filled by actor Daniel Dae Kim, who is Korean-American. Kim later posted a photo of the two of them chumming it up at a restaurant, presumably bonding over movies and their perfectly chiseled cheekbones.
Even without Black Panther, Stenberg’s profile has been on the rise over the last few years, thanks to their outspokenness about activism and busy slate. Their next project is The Hate U Give, the adaptation of Angie Thomas’s bestseller about a teen girl coping with police brutality.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/amandla-stenberg-black-panther