Returning to Wakanda brought some unprecedented challenges for the “Black Panther” cast and crew, including a serious injury involving franchise star Letitia Wright.
The British actress, who reprises her role as Princess Shuri, the late Chadwick Boseman’s on-screen sister, in Marvel’s sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” was hospitalized during production in late August 2021.
Wright was injured while filming a motorcycle sequence outdoors in Boston. The crash occurred when a stunt rig attached to the vehicle “cut a median and clipped the bike,” according to a Variety cover story that provided new details about the crash.
Wright suffered a “fractured shoulder, concussion and other injuries”, which caused production to be halted for the rest of the year as he recovered.
“I’m still processing it,” Wright told the media. “I’m still working on that in therapy. It was really traumatic.”
Director Ryan Coogler, who was working on the film’s set in Atlanta at the time, learned of the incident over the phone.
“It was as you can imagine,” he recalled. “I mean, I love these actors. It’s me and Chad’s little sister. Imagine getting that call that your sister is hurt. It’s the damn worst thing in the world.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige called the incident “horrific” and “particularly difficult” because production on the sequel was already “emotionally strained.”
However, Wright focused on completing the sequel, telling Coogler from the hospital that he “just wants to finish my movie”. The director encouraged her to return as production moved on to filming her character’s scenes before it began for several months.
Elsewhere in the Variety interview, Wright was less open about the controversy she sparked last December after sharing a video questioning the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. He later deleted both his Twitter and Instagram accounts after receiving backlash over the video. Months later, a report claiming she had not been vaccinated only raised further questions.
Wright has never directly shared her vaccination status, but she denied rumors that she spread her beliefs on set as “completely false.
“That’s not a question I’ve asked anybody, to be honest,” producer Nate Moore said. “However, he never spoke about his views. I have read stories that I would call unfair because I don’t know where they come from. As someone who is always on set in front of the monitor, I feel like I would hear that.”
Co-star Angela Bassett also said she “never heard Wright discuss vaccines during the movie.”
According to Variety , Wright declined to answer questions about the controversy during the interview and never responded to a subsequent email about her vaccination status due to unspecified “schedule changes.”
“I had great, great, great medical support, great patience on set. I’m just extremely proud of myself. I’m extremely proud of Ryan, the team, just for the resilience: overcoming adversity every step of the way,” Wright said. “When we finished filming, I cried like a baby.”
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