Winston Duke predicts Black Panther’s changing impact on diversity in Hollywood

Black Panther actor Winston Duke says the movie has a new lasting effect on Hollywood, and has created a new, equal structure of film altogether.

Ryan Coogler’s prolific Black Panther is not just a one-and-done kind of movie. It’s only been out for less than a year, yet it feels like its made years of progress socially and culturally. Of course, diversity’s job isn’t done in Hollywood, but Black Panther really made it feel like we took one large leap forward.

Its actors know that more than anything, including Winston Duke, who played the great leader of the Jabari tribe, M’Baku. Duke attended the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and revealed to Entertainment Weekly the effect he thinks Black Panther has had on Hollywood since its release.

For Duke, the film is paving the way for a new structure of film in Hollywood altogether, giving an equal chance for all actors to have their time in the spotlight:

"The structure has always been, you’re all the same. You have a leading man frame, but there’s only room for one. That’s usually how it’s felt in the past. So it can’t be Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman and Winston Duke and Daniel Kaluuya. But we were all in one movie, and the movie did a beautiful job of highlighting our differences. I think it’s showing us that there’s room for all of us. I think it will and should impact the way Hollywood views the creation of their lead characters."

This, as Duke mentions, certainly is something unique to Black Panther — and even Marvel in general. As the old ways in Hollywood go, there’s always the leading man or woman who the studios put their money on the sell the show. But with a movie like Black Panther, there is so much great talent in the film that prestige gets thoroughly divided among the cast. People weren’t just smitten over Chadwick Boseman alone. It was favorites like M’Baku, Shuri, Killmonger — practically the whole cast — who audiences fell in love with, simply because Coogler and the others made sure the cast was equally matched.

The actor had an additional bit of praise to throw out to the movie in regard to how they handled the two of the biggest female characters, Nakia and Okoye, saying:

"Some people could have thought because you have two strong, trained dark-skinned women in the same movie, Danai Gurira [and] Lupita Nyong’o, you could substitute them. This movie also did a beautiful job of highlighting that they are two different people. They have wonderful skillsets that are equally valid. And if you put them in movies, you get something completely different. And we get to celebrate their differences and their individuality. And I think that’s what’s really powerful about it."

At the end of the day, that’s truly what Black Panther is about, and that’s the important message it’s sharing to the world. We can have diverse films that can still showcase individuality at the same time. For so long, there have been stereotyped roles for women (especially black women), and Black Panther is just one of those movies to break the mold.

The movie gives us characters who are African — not poverty-struck as we so often see, but from a rich land, from royalty.

Women are brave and strong and caring, yet each still brings something unique to the table. It was through not only Gurira and Nyong’o, but also Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett, too, who brought these three-dimensional characters to life to inspire a generation.

As a final word, Duke said that the movie industry was due for change, and that it has to change. Calling the industry what it is, a business, he knows that money talks. And what the money has to say for Black Panther is that audiences domestically and worldwide are open to seeing more diverse movies.