Editor’s note: There are ZERO SPOILERS in this post.
Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o found an intense way to prepare for her return to the Black Panther series.
With Black Panther: Wakanda Forever playing in theaters, movie fans are beginning to get a glimpse of how filmmaker Ryan Coogler and company helped bring some of the film’s underwater scenes to life.
In the sequel, the antagonistic Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) rules over his sea-hidden kingdom of Talokan. To help bring the sequences in Talokan to life, Coogler’s crew had to figure out the best way to stage the fictional universe in the water.
Movie magic can cover some of it up, but the realistic nature of Takokan’s imagining came down in part to the actors learning to play their characters while fully submerged and swimming.
Nyong’o, who plays Wakandan spy Naika in the series, shared her underwater workout routine on her TikTok page.
@lupitanyongo Swimming down to Talokan was not as easy as it looked! 🏊🏿♀️🌊🏝 Safely supervised by @XPT Life and #MarkRobertsFitness 🏋🏿♀️ #wakandaforever #blackpanther #talokan #underwater #fittok #behindthescenes
“I felt like a crawfish,” Nyong’o joked in the post.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be one of two major Hollywood films this year to use extensive underwater production.
Avatar: The Way of Water, set for release next month, is poised to set a new benchmark for underwater production, on top of the clear advancements it’ll make in the 3-D space.
Since both productions are housed at Disney, it’s very likely the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever crew shared their insights into the rigors of underwater production, and vice versa.
At the very least, these casts probably learned some great aquatic workout routines to take with them after filming ends.
