Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Letitia Wright says that she was left in shock and disbelief after learning of Chadwick Boseman’s death in 2020.

Playing the brilliant younger sister to Boseman’s T’Challa (a.k.a. the titular superhero) in 2018’s Black Panther, Wright and Boseman had formed “deep familial bonds” while filming — more so than anyone else on set, according to director Ryan Coogler.

So when Wright woke up to the news that Boseman had died of colon cancer at just 43 years old, the actress says her brain simply refused to accept the information as true—despite the influx of condolences and requests for a statement.

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“Is someone trying to play a joke on me? This is not a good joke. This is not OK,” Wright recalled thinking, sharing her heartbreaking first instinct with Variety in a recent cover story: “I just did the first thing anybody would do: I called Chad.”

When she couldn’t reach Boseman after several attempts, the actress called the closest person she could: Black Panther co-star and friend Daniel Kaluuya.

Desperate to wake up from the nightmare, Wright says she begged Kaluuya to tell her this was some kind of twisted joke.

But he couldn’t give her the answer she was so desperately hoping for.

“I was like, ‘Yo, I think everybody’s tripping right now. I’m giving you like five seconds to tell me that this not real.’ He was super silent. I was like, ‘OK, fine, if you’re not gonna tell me, I’m going to continue calling Chad until he picks up.”

Wright continued to try to reach “her surrogate brother” on a second phone until Kaluuya snapped her out of it, softly urging her to think of Boseman’s family.

Wright Says Boseman’s Death Sent Her Into a ‘Downward Spiral’

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Although Wright’s first instinct was to jump on a plane and be with the rest of her grieving Black Panther family in L.A., it was August 2020 and pandemic restrictions meant the actress was under lockdown in London. Feeling robbed of a proper goodbye to Boseman, Wright says she couldn’t sleep and was thrown into a “downward spiral.”

While she could not travel to America for Boseman’s memorial, Wright threw herself into her work much like her character Shuri would, and when Coogler was ready to move forward with a sequel to Black Panther, she was ready to honor Boseman on the big screen.

“I’m going to dedicate this movie to Chad and to God, and I’m going to give my all,” she promised Coogler. “Whatever you need from me, I’ll do it.”

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in theaters November 11.