Lupita Nyong’o penned a powerful tribute to her close friend and Black Panther co-star Chadwick Boseman, who recently passed away at 43.
After nearly two weeks since Boseman’s died from colon cancer on Aug. 28, 2020, the Academy Award-winning actress emerged on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and wrote to her 9 million Instagram followers about her sense of immense sadness and loss as well as about the transcendent actor and humanitarian’s profound impact on her and the masses.
“I write these words from a place of hopelessness, to honor a man who had great hope. I am struggling to think and speak about my friend, Chadwick Boseman, in the past tense. It doesn’t make sense. The news of his passing is a punch to my gut every morning,” wrote Nyong’o, who also posted her thoughts on her Twitter page. “I am aware that we are all mortal, but you come across some people in life that possess a immortal energy, that seem like they have existed before, that are exactly where they are supposed to always be – here! … that seem ageless…. Chadwick was one of those people.”
For the beloved #ChadwickBoseman. #TakeYourTimeButDontWasteYourTime pic.twitter.com/PZ6opeoYUl
— Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) September 8, 2020
Nyong’o, who played Nakia — the love interest of Boseman’s character T’Challa — in the record-breaking Black Panther film, eloquently articulated how much he impacted her life in such a short period of time.
“Chadwick was a man who made the most of his time, and somehow also managed to take his time. I didn’t know him for long, but he had a profound effect on me in the time that I did. When we came together to make Black Panther, I remember being struck by his quiet, powerful presence,” she penned on IG. “He had no airs about him, but there was a higher frequency that he seemed to operate from. You got the sense that he was fully present and also somehow fully aware of things in the distant future. As a result, I noticed that Chadwick never seemed rushed! He commanded his time with ease.”
Flip the page to check out Nyongo’s thoughts in full.
