Chadwick Boseman has revealed he got into a row with Marvel about the Wakandan people of Africa using British accents. Marvel wanted Black Panther’s Wakandan people of Africa to speak with a British accent.
The studio was initially convinced that an African accent would be “too much for the audience to take in” and wanted to alter their dialect so that they spoke with an English twang, but Chadwick Boseman – who starred as T’Challa in the widely acclaimed film- fought against bosses because he felt it was important to keep the authenticity throughout.
In an interview for The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast, the 40-year-old actor who plays King T’Challa in the Marvel Universe, said he did some research and decided that Wakandans should speak with a click, but the studio wasn’t so sure.
“They felt like it was maybe too much for an audience to take,” Boseman said. “They felt like, ‘Would people be able to understand it through a whole movie?’ and ‘If we do it now, we’re stuck with it.’ I felt the exact opposite — like, if I speak with a British accent, what’s gonna happen when I go home?”
Two options were Boseman taking on a British accent or keeping his American accent and saying that the character had studied in a foreign country, but Boseman wasn’t going to give up on his belief.
“It felt to me like a deal breaker,” he said. “I was like, ‘No, this is such an important factor that if we lose this right now, what else are we gonna throw away for the sake of making people feel comfortable? … Once we decided to do it, we went for it.”
Black Panther went on to become one of the biggest box office hits of all time, becoming the ninth highest-grossing film of all time with $1.3 billion earned worldwide. The studio is now developing Black Panther 2.
Source: THR
