Elvis! Hey Elvis!” Letitia Wright calls enthusiastically. A waiter walks over. “Elvis is my friend. Elvis, Simon. Simon, Elvis.” Elvis and I introduce ourselves, and he takes my order. Wow, what a coincidence, I say to Wright – a friend of yours working here. How long have you known Elvis? “I just met him today.” She laughs. “I try to connect with people.” Did he recognise you? “No! Elvis doesn’t care who I am. He just cares if I’m a kind person or not.”
We meet at a restaurant in the Shard, London’s famous spike in the sky. Her publicist refers to her as Tish, so I ask Wright if she prefers people to call her Letitia or Tish. Letitia, she says instantly, correcting my pronunciation (it’s Leteesha).
I’m not surprised Elvis hasn’t recognised her. When I first see Wright in her hoodie and cap she looks tiny – year seven, maybe, just off to secondary school. But she’s actually a 29-year-old woman, and the longer you spend with her the more you realise how striking her face is. Wright is a wonderful actor and a great chooser of parts. And we’re here today to talk about three new ones – all of them winners.
You could not get three more different movies than Aisha, The Silent Twins and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In Aisha, she plays an asylum seeker so quietly traumatised she’s barely there. The Silent Twins is the true story of two elective mutes who end up in the high-security psychiatric hospital Broadmoor after being bludgeoned with racist abuse in their early school days. And in Wakanda Forever, she reprises her role as scientist superhero Shuri. What makes this prolific output all the more impressive is that she is still grieving for the actor Chadwick Boseman, her fictional brother in Black Panther and as close to a real brother as she’s had in real life. “I was devastated, as you can imagine. I’ve had to process it through therapy,” she says. “It’s not like I had a two-year break to process it and then came back into the film. We had to start six months after Chad died.” It’s only later that I begin to understand the depth of her grief.
Wright, who was born in Guyana, still has a hint of the accent in her voice. Her family came to the UK when she was seven, and she says her first experience of acting was at primary school in London soon afterwards. Not that she knew it at the time. “I didn’t want anybody to make fun of me, so I started to change my accent, and that’s where acting started to seep in.” When did she realise that was acting? “When I started to grow up and learn all the accents, you realise, ‘Oh, you changed your accent to present yourself to be something different, or for people to believe you belong to a particular place when you don’t.’ It was to combat the fact that I was different.” How long did it take to fit in? “A couple of years.” Did it have the desired effect?” She nods. “The impact over time was that people stopped making fun of it.” Wright comes to a stop. “I regret doing that now. As a kid you don’t know how special you are. I wish I hadn’t done it.”
The funny thing is that while she wanted to hide her own accent, at school she met and befriended many children who also had foreign accents. Some were refugees and asylum seekers. This, she says, is where her interest in the issue comes from. “It’s something that, as a child, I observed before clicking on the TV and seeing what people were saying on the news. You go to school with people – one minute they’re here, and the next they’re gone. And you’re, like, ‘Why?’ And you don’t know how to communicate that as a kid. But when you grow up you realise a kid got deported because they didn’t get their papers.” Did it happen to any of her friends? “Yes, I know people close to me who have been in detention centres. And this is hard to witness as a child, a teenager, a young woman.”
Wright was an only child. Her mother is a teacher, her father works in the agricultural business. She went to secondary school in Tottenham, north London and, encouraged by “amazing teachers”, took up drama. At 16 she joined the part-time Identity School of Acting in south London, where she became close friends with the actor John Boyega. He told her he was hoping to be in international films and taught her how to dream big. By the age of 17 she had appeared on TV in Top Boy and Holby City. The film industry magazine Screen International recognised her as one of its 2012 Stars of Tomorrow after her appearance in the British crime drama film My Brother the Devil, in which she played another character called Aisha.
Things appeared to be going well for Wright. But then she suffered a deep depression and considered quitting. She says she had lost her values and sense of perspective. Wright partied and drank and tried to obliterate herself in work, but none of it helped. Her friend, the actor Malachi Kirby (who played Kunta Kinte in the remake of the TV series Roots), called her one day and said he knew she was in a bad way and that God had told him to reach out to her. Wright wasn’t having any of it, but agreed to go along with him to an actors’ Bible study.
Her life was transformed. The depression lifted, and her career soared. I ask how Christianity changed her. “It gave me the centring I needed, the good foundation I needed, and it helped me to put in perspective what was important for me. Chasing something that is not tangible or not wholesome is not the way I want to go. If I was to pack all this up I’d still be happy with my faith, the contentment I feel and the connection to God.”
Had she been chasing unwholesome things? “Yes of course. We all chase things. You feel you need a better job, or better role, or more accolades, or more recognition. And I was chasing that. I had been chasing, chasing, chasing, but feeling empty. I realised I don’t have to chase that any more. If I trust that God has a plan for my life and I follow that and trust I’m doing the right things, then if people feel it, they will. I just want my work to speak for itself, and I feel that’s what Aisha does, and what Shuri in Black Panther does.” Does she come from a religious family? “My parents have always had faith, but it wasn’t something we continually practised. I had to find what worked for me and I found that Jesus worked for me. The more I prayed, the more I felt connected, and the less anxious.”
On her return to acting, she appeared in a number of memorable parts. In 2014, she played Amal in the musical drama Glasgow Girls, based on the true story of pupils who fought the Home Office to prevent their school friend being deported. In 2015, she starred in the moving Michael Caton-Jones movie Urban Hymn as Jamie, a volatile offender with an angelic voice. Wright was irresistible as Scotty, the slip of a thing who falls in love with and stalks a much older woman, in Russell T Davies’s Banana.
I tell her that I mentioned to Davies I was meeting her, and he told me he adored working with her. “She’s amazing,” he texted. “She was intense and devoted with the work, and kind of otherworldly. I had no idea what was going on in her head. She felt very special. But unknowable. You’d have marked her out for a lifetime of real, gritty Ken Loach films, so I’m amazed and happy she’s a Marvel star.”
Wright lights up when I tell her what Davies said. Has she seen any Loach films? “Yes, of course. Kes is one of my favourite films. He’s excellent. He’s one of the best.”
But rather than gritty realism, she’s now best known for Black Panther. Has she always been into Marvel? “I love what Marvel is doing with Black Panther, but in terms of being an avid reader of comic books, that was never me.” Is she surprised to find herself playing a superhero? “I’m surprised by the amount of people who know my name! I never compare it to what I do in terms of independent or arthouse films. I see them as the same, really, because I’m just going after a character that has meaning. And for me, Shuri has a lot of meaning. She has inspired so many young kids around the world, especially young Black women, to enjoy and be proud of themselves in the Stem [science, technology, education and maths] category of education. She’s a character that so many young girls want to be.”
It’s true, Shuri is the ultimate role model – cool, gorgeous, funny and the smartest person in the Marvel universe. Boseman handpicked Wright to play the part. What does she think he saw in her? “I guess my heart, and my heart for him as my big brother,” she says. She initially auditioned on tape, and then did two screen tests. “It was down to three girls, and after meeting him for the first time it was clear that we connected.”
Did she tell him she’d only be in the film if her character was the smartest person on the planet? Wright laughs. “It wasn’t an ultimatum, but it was a big factor in taking the role.” So if you’d just been a pretty, passive princess, you wouldn’t have been interested? “That wouldn’t be for me. But I definitely enjoy playing a princess who is really smart and can tell her brother what to do and have fun with him, and be the innovator of technology for her nation. That’s really inspiring.”
Was their close relationship in the film replicated in real life? “Yes! He doesn’t have sisters, but he would always say if he were to have one it would have to be me because I just connected with him and it was the way God wanted it to be.” Did he share her belief? “He definitely believed in God. He grew up a Christian, and his brother was a pastor.” At times she still talks of him in the present tense. “He definitely is a man of faith, but respectful of everyone’s religion at the same time.” Then she remembers, and switches to the past. “He carried an enormous amount of faith.”
When Boseman died of colon cancer at the age of 43 in 2020, the film world was left reeling. He had been diagnosed four years earlier, but had not made the information public. Wright still sounds traumatised today by his death. She says initially she couldn’t believe it when she heard the news, then she refused to believe it. She starts talking, and barely pauses, as she tells the story from start to finish. “I was at home in my apartment in east London. I was by myself. I just woke up and saw an email saying my condolences, and I was like, ‘My condolences for what?’ Then I clicked out of that email and kept just seeing Chadwick Boseman, Chadwick Boseman, Chadwick Boseman. I was like, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I clicked on one, and it was the PR team saying, ‘Do you want to write a statement?’ Statement? What’s going on?
“And I went to my phone, and I saw 50 calls back-to-back from different people. I was like, this is mad. So I just called Chad and his phone was ringing out. Then I called Daniel Kaluuya and I was like, ‘Bro, what’s going on?’ And he was silent. And I was like, ‘Bro you have five seconds to tell me this is not true? This is horrible. What’s going on?’ And there was this dead silence, and I was like, ‘I think this is true, but I’m just asking you to tell me that it’s not.’ And he didn’t. His response was, ‘Tish, where are you, who are you with?’ And I was like, ‘OK you’re not giving me the answer I need, I’m going to call Chad again.’ Daniel said, ‘Tish what are you doing?’ I said I’m trying to call Chad, and he said ‘Tish, the family … ’ And the second he said that I just lost it. I was punching my apartment up, I was screaming. I was just so angered. I was like, ‘Bro, Daniel, this is not happening’, but his silence spoke so loudly. And he just came immediately from where he was to comfort me.”
Wright finally comes to a tearful stop. She looks exhausted. I ask what the long-term impact of Boseman’s death has been on her. “You don’t know until something happens how it will affect you. You think you have time, and that’s the thing I’ve learned. These things make you realise it’s important to reach out to people you love. The amount of times I text my cast members to tell them I love them, especially Danai [Gurira]. I’m always texting Ryan [Coogler, the director of the Black Panther films] that I love him, and asking him how he is. I’m not going to delay that any more because tomorrow’s not promised.” She pauses. “Since Chad died, I’m so afraid to lose people.”
Black Panther has made more than $1.3bn at the box office, but its cultural significance has been even larger. Jamil Smith, writing for Time, said Black Panther would “prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences”. Which is just what it did.
It must have been such an exhilarating atmosphere on the set of the first film, I say to Wright. “It was!’” She smiles a huge, ecstatic smile. “It was!” What was it like to return for the sequel after Boseman’s death? “It was tough. We had up and down days where you could tell people were grieving. We were able to be there for each other on set and be sensitive to the days when we didn’t feel so good about being on set because you’re missing someone; you’re missing your brother. Grief was at my doorstep every day while I was filming.”
She says Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Notes on Grief has helped her. “She describes how when you go through grief, nothing soothes the pain. You’re just furious you’ve lost this person. All you want is them back. Grief comes like a thief in the night, and it just stays there. And you have to deal with it. You can’t kid yourself that you’re OK today.” I ask if she still lives by herself. “I’m a nomad right now, I need a home.” Has she got a partner? “I’m very private,” she says.
We meet a few weeks before the release of Wakanda Forever, and she is sworn to secrecy about the plot. So we talk about some of her less mainstream but equally influential work. In 2020, she starred in Steve McQueen’s brilliant docudrama Mangrove. Wright was scorching as Trinidadian Black Panther leader Altheia Jones-LeCointe, one of a group of activists accused of riot and affray at a 1970 protest against police targeting of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. If she’d been around in the 70s, would she have been a Panther? “That’s a good question. That’s a good question. That’s a good question!” But not one she’s going to answer. “I don’t know because I wasn’t around in the 70s, but I do know that when I played Altheia I connected to what they were fighting for.” When she tells me she met Jones-LeCointe, she sounds awestruck. “She’s amazing. I got to understand her as a woman, as a Black woman. I love acting because I get to have my cake and eat it. One day I can get to be a Black Panther in the 1970s or I can be a Black Panther in Wakanda.”
At the end of 2020, with Wright on a career high, she found herself at the centre of a Twitter storm after sharing a video by a controversial pastor that contained anti-vaxx messages and transphobic remarks. The pastor has also suggested that LGBTQ+ people were “invading the church”, and that people who attended Pride were “hell children”. Her fans were devastated, not least because she had made a name for herself playing liberal – if not radical – parts.
I tell her I want to talk about that tweet. “Uh-huh,” she says quietly. It obviously caused you stress because you deleted your Twitter account the next day, I say. Silence. At the time she tweeted: “If you don’t conform to popular opinions but ask questions and think for yourself … you get cancelled.” Did you think you were in danger of being cancelled? “I feel it’s something I experienced two years ago and I have in a healthy way moved on. And in a healthy way I’ve apologised and deleted my Twitter. I just apologised for any hurt that was caused to anybody.” People tend to see sharing on social media as an endorsement, I say, but did this misrepresent your values? “That’s exactly what my apology was. It was saying this is not me, and I apologise.”
Because your fans might have assumed that by sharing the film you were a transphobic, homophobic anti-vaxxer? “Those are things that I am not and I apologised and I’ve moved on,” she says twitchily.
Have you been vaccinated?
“I have apologised and I have moved on,” Wright repeats. “Next question. Thanks.”
She’s right that we are living in a scarily unforgiving culture; one that could have seen her career finished for the single unfortunate share on social media. I’m glad it didn’t. Wright seems a kind woman, as well as a rare acting talent with a keen eye for unusual projects. The Silent Twins, the third of her new films, is a perfect example of this.
A couple of months before the infamous tweet, she launched her own production company called Threesixteen after the New Testament verse John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” She says that the production company will hopefully ensure she gets the chance to play the parts that fascinate her. Wright is one of the producers on The Silent Twins, based on the real story of Jennifer and June Gibbons, who talked to each other and nobody else. As little girls, they were creative and fun-loving, but they turned their back on the world after encountering its bigotry.
What attracted her to their story? “I felt that it was misunderstood. When I read their books and diaries I realised how special and creative and adventurous they were, but they struggled to speak because they were ostracised and marginalised for being Black.”
It’s such an intense film. Did making it affect her and co-star Tamara Lawrance mentally? “It definitely affected our mental health,” she says. “They were in Broadmoor for 11 years, so that messes with you and you carry it in deep ways as an artist, but you try to channel it back into the film.” Why does she think the twins refused to talk to others? “If we open our mouths and we have a speech impediment and we have an accent and we’re Black and you’re going to call us chocolate drop at school and tell us we’re Black whatever, eventually we’re not going to want to speak.”
Wright’s got another meeting, so I start packing up. As I do, we talk about the type of films she hopes to make with her production company. “I want to do things that make you think and make you consider life in a better way, 100%.” Does that mean, for example, tackling issues of discrimination and injustice? “I would love our projects to make people feel impacted, connected and in some way bring about some kind of positive change.”
I can see her mind whirring. “You said you know Ken Loach,” she says, picking up on something I’d told her in our earlier conversation. “Tell him I said hello.”
You know him, too?
“No! You know him! Make the connection, man!”
We stand up, and we’re looking over London Bridge from the top of the Shard. Does she get stopped much when she’s out and about in London? “Not really,” she says. “I just blend in, and I don’t see myself the way other people see me. I don’t see myself as Letitia Wright. I see myself as Tish, that girl from Tottenham.” But you said earlier on that you were definitely Letitia, not Tish. She grins, and admits Tish is what her friends call her and how she thinks of herself. What’s the difference between Letitia and Tish, I ask. “I guess Letitia is professional and on time and masters her schedule.” And Tish? “Tish is just trying to think of ways she can fit in time for her family, trying to feed herself on art, and trying to remain grounded, so Letitia can have a good foundation.”
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in cinemas now. Aisha is in cinemas and on Sky Cinema now. The Silent Twins is in cinemas from 9 December
