“By the grace of God, everything on my vision board has been achieved. And I've had it since I was maybe 15? I need a new one!” Letitia Wright tells me proudly, as she sits down with me to film GLAMOUR’s Unfiltered on the night of the big Black Panther: Wakanda Forever European movie premiere.
Letitia Wright is not your regular superhero; or whatever ‘regular’ means. Playing the lead role of Shuri in the second instalment of the Black Panther movie franchise Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which some may dub as a dream breakout starring role), just amplified the talent we saw in Letitia whose accolades expand far beyond Marvel. Think Top Boy, Doctor Who, Black Mirror, Small Axe, Sing 2 as well as her reprisal in the Avengers Movies. You can spot Letitia in all of the above showcasing her award-winning acting skills. Undoubtedly, that is one sexy CV for 29 years of living.
Highly intelligent and a master engineer, Letitia’s character Shuri is Wakanda's lead scientist and the princess of the country. Her late brother King T’Challa who was the Black Panther dies and as much to her mother's dismay, she steps in to protect her land and her people from the Western World and the ‘colonisers’ and becomes the new Black Panther.
Poised, charming, and quick-witted, much like her character in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Letitia captures your attention with very few words. In fact, when speaking candidly about her dear co-star from Black Panther, the late Chadwick Boseman, she tells me: “[Chadwick] carried such a beautiful presence that didn't require attention with his words. He just walks into a room and he just observes and listens and process before even uttering a word.”
She later confessed that if she wasn’t an actor she would want to pursue a career in psychology. I tell her that from our small interaction, she seems like a good listener, and she responds: “I’m a good talker, I’m not a great listener, but I’m working on it…” Shuri’s natural swag feels authentic and it’s easy to understand why. This is the power superheroes hold, but far beyond the ‘vibranium-rich’, fictional walls of Wakanda, in real life, Letitia stands strong in using her own real-life superpower: her voice.
The Guyanese-born actor shares with me her passion for her heritage and her relationship with her hair growing up, which she now has styled in a very short pixie cut. Although she was mostly raised in north London, moving to England with her family at age seven, her endearing Guyanese twang pokes through in our conversation, and she can’t resist sharing with me her favourite dishes from home, as well as all the things that make her most proud of her culture. The movie itself reminds her of her own culture. It’s full of anecdotal banter, cultural references, and empowering moments which is obvious Letitia can proudly identify with.
Wearing a gold set of grills specially designed for her, with a matching sparkly gold box-blazer, Letitia sits down with me, as she then candidly shares the best advice she’s ever received from Chadwick Boseman, vision boards, full-circle moments, and much more…
Firstly congratulations, this is going to be a lot of people’s movie of the year hands down. Tell me about Shuri? Are there any similarities between you and Shuri, personality-wise?
“Thank you so much! So, I’m not as sassy as her, I think. The sarcasm? Yeah, I can share that with Shuri a bit. She's definitely super smart. Her swag is a little bit bigger, she's one up on me, maybe 10 up on me. Haha, she’s really swaggy and really cool. I really enjoy playing her.”
In the movie, Shuri wears a lot of natural hairstyles, which as a Black girl, was so refreshing to see. What was your relationship with your hair growing up? How does it compare to Shuri’s?
“I think that unfortunately, I was pulled into the belief that straighter hair was better and unfortunately I did hair processing as a kid and lost all the natural beauty of it. But then it was actually playing Shuri and having her braids and seeing everything be so celebrated in the films that really encouraged me to embrace my own beauty with my hair. So yeah, that's been a journey that I've been on and one I'm really proud of.”
What inspired you to do the big chop?
“I was definitely inspired by the looks in the new movie. Shuri has a mohawk in the middle, so then the sides had to be cut down. It's a pretty cool look, but it would take a while for it to just get all in sync and I just felt inspired to just do the chop.”
What was the best advice Chadwick Boseman (who you got to work so closely with in Black Panther) has ever given you?
“He's given me a lot of advice. Oh man. In many ways, he's taught me the importance of silence. He's taught me the importance of just thinking before you speak. He carried such a beautiful presence that didn't require attention with his words. He just walked into a room and he just observed and listened and processed before even uttering a word. And he just taught me that and I really, I'm trying to exercise that in my life a lot.”
Do you feel added pressure to attain these unrealistic beauty standards that have been set on women, especially being a Black woman in Hollywood?
“I can see how those standards that are out there or those expectations can make you feel insecure or not good enough. But it's really about reversing that, I think it's about finding out what makes you beautiful on the inside and allowing that to shine. And I think I'm finding my way through that. So if you see me being confident of flexin’, it's because it's the inner beauty that I've established in myself before anyone else tells me to. So I think that's my way of combating all of those expectations. At the end of the day, it's just there to make people feel insecure and that's not really helpful.”
What makes you the proudest of your heritage?
“Well, I'm Guyanese. I'm still discovering whereabouts I'm from in Africa. Well, as I do all of those little [ancestry] tests and stuff like that. But what makes me most proud is just my people, our culture, our way of cooking, and our agricultural advancement. We have one of the strongest rainforests [in the world] and I just love Guyana is just my home.”
How do you pull yourself out of a funk?
“Prayer. I try to pray about it. I try to phone a friend. Therapy is really, really good. Me and my friends go by the saying ‘Jesus and therapy’. It's really ridiculous to think that therapy and positive mental health don't go hand in hand with faith because it does. I think the beauty of a relationship with God is that it's not just about praying and thinking everything's gonna go away. It's a process there to aid and help you. But also there's something called wisdom. And wisdom is applying that [knowledge from therapists] and talking to someone with a person that’s educated to help you through it. So I think it's important to champion both. I try to do that to get myself out of a funk and music and treating myself, spa days, holidays, and any time I can see the water at the beach, and I’ll be good.”
You can just tell what's one piece of advice you would give to your younger
“I have a picture of my younger self as my screensaver. I did it last week just to remind me, and to look at her. And when I look at her, she's smiling at me and I'm literally telling her ‘Thank you for holding on so we can get to this place. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for dreaming big. Thank you for just, Just holding me down.’ This little girl in the photo is now the woman that you see today. So I’d tell her to keep going, you’re doing great.”
Have you had any sort of full-circle moments?
“Oh man. Yeah. There's a bunch, I think off the top of the dome. It's just watching Keke Palmer and Angela Bassett on ‘Akila And The Bee Movie’. And to be in my bedroom one summer in London, hoping and wishing to be an actor, hoping and wishing to do a movie like that to inspire others. And then I'm on set and Angela Bassett is my mom. It's like, that's madness. She's one of the finest, most excellent actresses you can get to play your mom. So that's a full circle moment for me. Being blessed with a role in a play called Eclipse At The Gate with Danai Gurira, not fully knowing what God was gonna have in store for us. And in a full circle moment, I'm on set with her in Black Panther. She's one of my greatest sisters and one of my greatest motivators and inspirations.”
Do you have a vision board?
“You know what, I had one. I need to recreate it because by the grace of God, everything in my vision both been achieved. Oh my gosh. And I've had it since I was maybe 15. So yeah, I need to recreate it.”
Major flex from a woman that deserves all of the above and much more. Letitia is about to have Hollywood on a tight grip, are you ready?
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in cinemas now.
For more from Glamour UK Beauty Writer Shei Mamona, follow her on Instagram @sheimamona
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