‘Black Panther’ adds Emmy winner Sterling K Brown as N’Jobu
With shooting on track for an early 2017 start to production, Black Panther is making another big casting move, adding Sterling K. Brown, who currently stars in the hit NBC drama This Is Us.
Marvel officially announced the Black Panther Sterling K. Brown casting, confirming that the Emmy Award winnter has joined Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Walking Dead star Dania Gurira, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke and others.
Brown will be playing N’Jobu, described cryptically as “a figure from T’Challa a.k.a. Black Panther’s past” — a character created for the movie.
Jordan plays the film’s villain, Erik Killmonger with T’Challa (Boseman) back in Wakanda following his father’s death and the events of Captain America: Civil War.
“Black Panther’s leadership has been threatened by two foes (Killmonger and Man-Ape) who come together, and so Black Panther gets the help of the C.I.A. and the Dora Milaje to try and defeat the enemy,” Nyong’o explained of the new film.
Nyong’o plays Nakia, Gurira as Okoye, Whitaker as Zuri, Bassett as Ramonda, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, Duke as M’Baku a.k.a. Man-Ape, and Florence Kasumba as Ayo.
Okoye is the leader of the Dora Milaje, the group of skilled women who are charged with being the Black Panther’s personal bodyguards.
Created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, Man-Ape/M’Baku debuted in Avengers #62 in 1969. Once one the greatest soldiers serving Wakanda – the fictional, hyper-advanced African nation ruled by Black Panther – M’Baku joined the outlawed White Gorilla cult, gaining superpowers with which he attempted to take over the kingdom for himself.
Creed director Ryan Coogler is directing from a script he wrote with Joe Robert Cole.
Brown is mainly known for his TV work, appearing in Person of Interest and Army Wives. Brown won the Emmy for playing Christopher Darden in FX’s American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson and earned a Golden Globe nomination for the same role.
Black Panther will be in theaters February 16, 2018.
