Alex Livinalli Reveals the Words That Inspired his Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Character (Exclusive)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever brought a whole new world to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the introduction of the vibranium rich underwater kingdom of Talokan and, along with it, a whole new world of characters. While Namor, the king of Talokan is a major figure in the film, so is the Talokanil warrior Attuma. Played by Alex Livinalli, Attuma is very much a force to be reckoned with, going toe-to-toe with Okoye (Danai Gurrira) in battle. Livinalli’s take on Attuma marks the character’s live-action debut, and while are differences between the MCU’s Attuma and the character on the pages of Marvel Comics, Livinalli told ComicBook.com, there were aspects from the comics that he kept in mind all throughout his performance — including the character’s comics accurate nicknames.

Speaking with ComicBook.com’s Nicole Drum, Livinalli said that tried to incorporate Mayan translations of Attuma’s comic book nicknames into the film and while they ultimately didn’t organically fit, they were in his mind all throughout the performance — and he really wished he could have given that to fans.

“We worked on it for a really long time and one of the things that helped me create this environment of Attuma was like, yes, it was a dialogue that was in the script as Mayan coming from my character, but there were a lot of conversations that I had [with the language coach] where it was like, listen, for me, as creating this character, for my inner monologues that are happening within the moments that I’m in, whether I’m speaking or not, there are things that I want to say based on what’s happened on the script. I also say, ‘Hey, how do I say, I am Attuma? How do I tell this person, go over here, go over there?’ Not necessarily because they were lines that I was going to say, but there were lines that I needed in my head, in my end, for me to proceed to live in the moment,” Livinalli said.

He continued, “Something very, very, very cool that happened in between those conversations and from my research of Attuma were the nicknames of Attuma in the comic books, the Breaker of Oceans, the Lord of the Murky Depths, Lord Attuma, Attuma the Barbarian. When I found this out, I was like, ‘Sweet, how do I do this? How do I incorporate this in Mayan?’ And out of all of those, I felt Breaker of Oceans, I felt like that spoke to me as a character. So, we worked on that for a while. We worked on Breaker of Oceans, Warrior of the Seas, and I Am Attuma. Those were three constant words, dialogues that I had in my mind when I was performing it. I really wanted to throw that in there in the movie when we were shooting, but there was just no time, there was no moment where it would’ve fit. It would’ve been forced. But in my mind, I was thinking, ‘ah, if I actually throw one of these lines over here and the actual comic book fans see it, they’ll go bananas with this.’”

Livinalli said that while he doesn’t know if he will return to Marvel, he’s hopeful and if he does, he hopes to get a chance to bring those lines to life for the fans.

“But it never happened, and hopefully I get a chance to do that down the road,” he said.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now streaming on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can do that right here. 

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