'Black Panther's Danai Gurira Reveals the Funny Way She Realized Lupita Nyong'o Was in the Film

The Academy Award-nominated Marvel Studios film Black Panther has a star-studded cast, but it turns out some of those were unaware that the others had joined the same film.

Danai Gurira plays Okoye in Black Panther. She was a recent guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Gurira told Fallon about how she and Lupita Nyong'o, who plays Nakia, had no idea they were in Black Panther together despite Nyong'o acting in Gurira's play, Eclipsed, at the time.

"She was acting in Eclipsed, actually, and I was the playwright, so I was coming in and out," Gurria says."So we would see each other like several times a week, we'd hang out, everything. And I had heard that I had had this offer and I was told. 'Hush, hush.' And I'm used to 'hush, hush.' I'm on Walking Dead. I don't talk about nothing. So I was like, 'Alright, I'm hushed.' And little did I know that she's right there hushed too. So we finally figured it out when [Black Panther director Ryan Coogler] came and watched the play. And we were like, 'Oh, you know Ryan? I know Ryan. How do you know Ryan?' And then slowly it came together that we were both in the movie, which was so very awesome."

Believe it or not, a similar thing happened with Gurira learning that Letitia Brown, who plays Shuri, was also in Black Panther.

"I knew Letitia because she was actually in that same play, Eclipsed, in London in 2015, the same role that Lupita played, which is crazy, right?" Gurira says. "And then when I was trying to cast another play of mine [The Convert] in London, we were always like 'Okay, it's Letitia's,' and they were like 'Um, Letitia's not available because she's actually going to be in a film with you called Black Panther.' She hadn't told me that."

Black Panther is nominated for seven Academy Awards. The categories are Best Picture, Best Original Music Score, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, and Best Sound Editing.

Do you think Black Panther has a shot at winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!

Black Panther is now available on home media.

Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8th; Avengers: Endgame on April 26th; Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th.