Wright, Letitia (1993- )

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    ‘Sound of Hope’ Studio Defends Partnership With The Daily Wire

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    Letitia Wright, the “Black Panther” actor and an executive producer of “Sound of Hope,” had posted her frustration with people using the film for “divisive political purposes.”The studio behind last year’s unexpected hit “Sound of Freedom” defended a partnership with the conservative website The Daily Wire to promote “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot” following complaints by the actress Letitia Wright, an executive producer of the film.“Sound of Hope” is based on the true story of a Christian couple in Texas who adopted 77 children from foster care. The distributor, Angel Studios, framed the film as a spiritual sequel to “Sound of Freedom,” which starred Jim Caviezel as a real-life former federal law enforcement official who combats human trafficking.On the day “Sound of Hope” received its full theatrical release, Matt Walsh, the Daily Wire commentator and podcaster, posted on social media about the inspiration for the movie and added that “leftists are trying to stop Christians from saving more children.”In a series of posts on X, Walsh then condemned states that he said had prevented adoptions by parents who declined to recognize gender transition in children. He detailed two cases involving lawsuits in Oregon and Vermont.Wright, whose acting credits include “Black Panther” and “Ready Player One,” said on social media days later that she did “not condone using this beautiful film for divisive political purposes.”“This story isn’t about politics, it’s about children,” she posted. “It’s about sacrificial love for children who have experienced unthinkable horrors.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Aisha’ Review: Seeking Asylum in Ireland

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      The “Black Panther” star Letitia Wright shows understated vulnerability in this immigrant drama by Frank Berry. Josh O’Connor (“Challengers”) also stars.When an administrator says “I’m sorry” at a shelter for asylum seekers in “Aisha,” the phrase has seldom sounded so galling. An exemplar of the upending power people can wield in bureaucracies, the administrator repeatedly makes things difficult for Aisha, a young Nigerian woman petitioning for permanent residence in Ireland.The “Black Panther” star Letitia Wright descends from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to give a quietly fierce performance as Aisha, an asylum seeker in the writer-director Frank Berry’s drama. The reasons for her request unfold during visits with her legal counsel, in video talks with her mother in Lagos and at the careful prodding of the shelter’s fledgling security guard (played with hangdog sympathy by Josh O’Connor of “Challengers”). All the while, Wright breathes deep vulnerability into Aisha’s unsurprising reticence.At the beauty salon where she works, Aisha’s rightly cagey as she listens to her customers. But at the shelter, she turns warm, when she gives makeovers to fellow immigrants. As he did for his award-winning prison film, “Michael Inside,” Berry used nonprofessional actors with intimate experience of the system — here, Ireland’s International Protection Office, which processes asylum applications — he wanted to depict. It’s a gesture that keeps the film from lapsing into melodrama.Will Aisha convince the decision makers that she cannot safely return to Nigeria? Will Aisha and Conor’s hushed friendship bud into something more? “Aisha” resists tidy answers through the gentle force of its performances and by staying on the rebuffs and uncertainty Aisha suffers.AishaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      What’s So Frightening About Identical Twins?

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      “The Silent Twins,” a new film starring Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, sets out to show the complexity of twinship onscreen.Growing up in England and Wales in the 1970s, the identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons spoke to each other all the time. They chattered and laughed, and whispered. They were prolific readers and wrote stories that showed great creative promise. They had ambitions to become famous authors.But throughout their childhood, they had experienced racist bullying at school, which became particularly bad in Haverfordwest, where they and their brother were the only Black students. They became selectively mute, a condition generally caused by severe anxiety. Eventually, they rarely spoke to anyone but each other.Later in their teenage years, this behavior, alongside incidents of petty theft and arson, would ultimately lead them to Broadmoor, one of the most notorious psychiatric hospitals in Britain, for nearly 12 years.Only one of them truly left the institution — Jennifer died of inflammation of the heart on the day of their release, at 29.Marjorie Wallace, the investigative journalist who first reported on the story of the twins in the 1980s and campaigned for their release from Broadmoor, wrote about them in her 1986 book, “The Silent Twins.”“I loved their sense of humor,” Wallace said. “Very ironic, very perceptive. They saw the funny side of everything, as well as the tragic.” She first met the twins when she was working as a journalist for The Sunday Times. Although they didn’t engage with her at first, she convinced them to speak to her by reading their writings: from Jennifer, for example, a novel titled “Discomania,” and from June, a novel titled “The Pepsi- Cola Addict,” alongside diaries and other texts.Wallace quickly realized that June and Jennifer had incredibly rich, complex worlds under the surface of their silence. “It’s a bit like deep-sea diving,” she said. “And you suddenly come across this Technicolor world that they wrote.”Over the years, June and Jennifer’s story has been used to sustain ongoing narratives about the dangers of twins that are often seen in films and on television. Think of the creepy twins in “The Shining,” for example, or a recent Netflix hit, “Echoes” (which presents its lead twin characters, who swap lives once a year unbeknown to their family and friends, as borderline psychopathic), where tropes of fascination, intrigue, fetish and horror abound.Leah Mondesir Simmons and Eva-Arianna Baxter in “The Silent Twins.”Jakub Kijowski/Focus Features“The Silent Twins,” a new movie about June and Jennifer starring Letitia Wright (“Black Panther”) and Tamara Lawrance (“Kindred”) as the teenage and adult twins, aims to buck this trend.Directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska (“The Lure”), the film hopes to capture the rich, tragic palette of the twins’ lives. It makes clever use of stop motion animation and original music inspired by their writings.“I wanted to tell this from their point of view, from the inside,” Smoczynska said. “And just to introduce them as beautiful, sensitive, very funny, intelligent sisters.” She was drawn to the story having grown up among a “constellation” of her mother’s sisters in Poland.“Their story has many, many layers; for me, it’s one of the most beautiful love stories, because it’s very dynamic,” she added. “And it ends with the act of love. That’s what June said after Jennifer died. That her sister sacrificed herself for her and freed her.”She spent weeks reading and discussing Wallace’s book and the sisters’ diaries, novels and poetry, alongside the cast and crew. “That’s why this movie is not only one genre,” Smoczynska said. “You have both psychological drama and fantastical elements because the same was in their writings. They were very complex in terms of form, and their descriptions.” Now, some of the twins’ novels and other writings are set to be professionally published for the first time.Wallace said it was a calculated choice to work with Andrea Seigel, who wrote the screenplay, and Smoczynska, who she felt would do justice to her reporting. “There have been many, many people who have come to me with synopses and scripts,” Wallace said. “One of them was about two white girls in Mississippi who were drug addicts and went to crazy raves.” Wallace worked as a consultant and co-producer on the film and is still close with June, who Wallace says gave her blessing to the film but is intent on living a private life.While Wallace said the new film is “not entirely maybe what I would have done” (she wrote the screenplay for the original BBC adaptation of her book in 1986), she described Wright and Lawrance’s portrayal of June and Jennifer as “remarkable.” “At some points in watching the film, I honestly thought I was back in Broadmoor,” she said, ‌highlighting a phrase June used while imagining that institution: “My sister and I, as vulnerable as flowers in hell.”Alongside reframing June and Jennifer’s lives and paying tribute to their acts of creativity, Wallace hopes that the film will have an impact on the portrayal of twins on film and TV in general.Lisa and Louise Burns in the 1980 film “The Shining,” directed by Stanley Kubrick.Warner Bros. Entertainment“If you look at the old movies, and in fact, any current movies, they either make twins out as evil killers or freaks,” said Wallace. “Or they make them comic, or they use their identical image to be able to manipulate and play havoc.”“It’s extraordinary that I haven’t really seen a film about twins which has represented the complexity and the depth of the love, the hate, the way of finding your own identity when you’re looking in the mirror all the time to see an identical person there,” she said. “Until now, maybe, with this current movie.”Joe Garrity, a filmmaker (and twin), said Wallace’s book was a “really foundational” text for him in learning about the range of twin relationships. His award-winning 2016 short film, “Twinsburg” tells the story of a pair of twins attending the (very real) annual Twins Day Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, and grapples with the idea that, though they were raised to be inseparable, they have fundamental differences.“The more we can have depictions that examine those internalized identities that are given to us from others, the better,” he added. “The more people will feel seen and heard, even non-twins.”Lawrance and Wright, who are producers on “The Silent Twins,” became incredibly close during the course of the filming, staying up all night talking and planning their scenes, and even moving in next door to each other. Lawrance felt deep empathy for the sisters and said she knows what it’s like to feel voiceless because of her race and gender. “I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, as a Black woman, there have been many times in which I have felt isolated within an institution that was so much bigger than me.”For Wright, who was brought onto the project first and already knew of June and Jennifer’s story, she said it was important that she and Lawrance had creative control behind the scenes as the only Black women on the production team.The director “understood early on that she doesn’t have all the answers, she’s not a Black woman, so she was willing to listen, she was willing to learn from me and Tamara,” Wright said in an interview. “And immediately I told her, if I’m going to join this project, whoever’s going to play my twin, we have to have a seat at the table, we have to be executive producers or producers: pick one. We have to have a say because this is our story.”Lawrance and Wright worked intensively with movement and voice coaches to attempt to replicate the sisters’ behavior and appearance onscreen, despite looking nothing alike. They also spent a lot of time considering the differences in their characters. Wright views June as a “caged bird,” with the maturity to understand that the twins’ way of life couldn’t last forever, but had deep love and loyalty toward her sister.Lawrance thinks that Jennifer was more insecure than June, which made her slightly more obsessive. “Watching the documentary and reading the book, I really felt for Jennifer, because I felt like media coverage of the past depicts her as the evil twin,” she said. “The one that is possessing June.”Looking back, Lawrance saw how their differences came between them. “In her diaries, she writes, ‘I’ve got this scar on my nose. My sister is so beautiful.’ The admiration of the other was extreme, but also her finding her intolerable was also very extreme. There’s this amazing quote in her diary, where she says: ‘Cain killed Abel. No twin should forget that.’”Phil Garrity, left, and Joe Garrity in the film “Twinsburg,” directed by Joe Garrity.Drew DorseyJust as the stories of twins in mythology stretch back thousands of years, that film and TV will continue to be fascinated with twins is inevitable: Coming movies featuring twins include the horror “Goodnight Mommy,” and a comedy musical inspired by “The Parent Trap.” Could “The Silent Twins” have a small but lasting impact on their portrayal?Smoczynska reflected that after a screening, a mother came up to her, very moved, and said that she had gained a much greater understanding of her twins.“This is the reason why you make the movies,” Smoczynska said. “So that somebody can find himself or herself and understand life, and heal.” More

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      The Women of ‘Wakanda Forever,’ the ‘Black Panther’ Sequel

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      When Marvel released the trailer for the sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in July, it garnered 172 million views in its first 24 hours. That was nearly double the viewership of the original “Black Panther” teaser in 2017. In the intervening years, much had changed. The first one, directed by Ryan Coogler, smashed not only box office records but also expectations and stereotypes about whether overseas audiences would watch films with predominantly Black casts. “Black Panther” also became the first superhero movie nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards.At the same time, T’Challa, the king of Wakanda, and his alter ego, Black Panther, both brilliantly inhabited by Chadwick Boseman, became fan favorites in the battle with Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). The singularity of Boseman’s measured, charismatic yet playful performance helped shape the legacy of “Black Panther,” making role and actor almost synonymous and inspiring millions of children worldwide to see themselves in a Black superhero.But even then, I thought the most obvious rival for T’Challa’s throne wasn’t Killmonger but the Dora Milaje, the women warriors who loyally protect their country’s leader. Okoye, played by the marvelous Danai Gurira, was the chief military strategist for the wealthiest nation on earth. In the teaser for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” we see the Dora Milaje, including Ayo (Florence Kasumba reprising her role) and Aneka (Michaela Coel, joining the cast), taking an even more prominent role and confronting a new enemy, Namor, the Sub-Mariner, played by Tenoch Huerta. Also making an appearance is his cousin, the mutant hybrid Namora, with Huerta’s fellow Mexican actor Mabel Cadena in this role.But, in addition to protecting Wakanda, the Dora Milaje also must secure the throne without T’Challa. After Boseman died in 2020 following a private battle with colon cancer, Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, announced that the character would not be recast, raising speculation about the destiny of Shuri (Letitia Wright), who is T’Challa’s sister and heir apparent as well as Wakanda’s chief scientist. That seemed to be the thinking until the trailer arrived, and the hashtag #recastTChalla went viral, followed by a Change.org petition with more than 60,000 signatures contending, “If Marvel Studios removes T’Challa, it would be at the expense of the audiences (especially Black boys and men) who saw themselves in him.”From left, Dorothy Steel, Florence Kasumba, Angela Bassett and Gurira in a scene from the new film. Marvel StudiosWhat risks being lost in this debate are the powerful women of Wakanda — Okoye and Shuri, of course, but also Nakia, the spy played by Lupita Nyong’o, and Ramonda, the queen (the legendary Angela Bassett). In the trailer, you can see they are warriors, mourners, healers, mothers, leaders, sisters and defenders of the legacy of T’Challa (and, for that matter, Boseman). They might also expand the meaning of the Black Panther superhero imagery beyond one man or even one moment in time.In advance of the Nov. 11 release of the sequel, with the plot still under wraps, I spoke to several women of “Wakanda Forever,” including Bassett, Cadena, Gurira, Kasumba, Nyong’o and Wright. Though they experienced the making of the film quite differently from one another, they found ways to grieve together, overcome injuries (Wright suffered a critical shoulder fracture and a severe concussion) and forge a real-life sisterhood on-set that mirrors the feminist spirit of the fictional Wakanda.These are edited excerpts from our conversations.Were you surprised by how huge a hit “Black Panther” was in 2018?ANGELA BASSETT I was very pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of love for the story, for the actors, for the representation, for the entertainment of it all. Not being a comic book person myself coming into this project, I expected those who love the Marvel Universe to show up. But for the rest of humanity to show up in droves was mind-blowing.DANAI GURIRA We were able to create very full characters that killed a lot of stereotypes about what a superhero or heroism looks like. We all have stories, but one that jumped out at me was when this 11-year-old white boy would not let go of my hand. His dad was like, “I’m so sorry.” But, that whole experience shattered the larger idea that “Oh, the only way you can resonate is as a white male in these types of roles.”LETITIA WRIGHT It’s been really beautiful to see so many young people be inspired. I always feel really proud when someone says that Shuri has expanded how they think about themselves.Kasumba, right, is reprising her role as Ayo, but Dominique Thorne, left, and Mabel Cadena are new to the franchise. The training was exhausting, Cadena said, but “I was also inspired by these women every day.”Simone Niamani Thompson for The New York TimesGiven that past success, how did you prepare for this sequel, both in terms of its intense fandom and the loss of Chadwick Boseman?LUPITA NYONG’O Let me speak for myself. There was a lot of stillness, reflection, prayer and meditation to bolster me up as emotionally, mentally and spiritually as possible. It was a unique experience to step back into this world without our leader. When you have a sophomore film, there’s a lot of expectation. But I think the loss of Chadwick kind of took all that away. I found myself having to radically accept that this was going to be different, and that showing up with as much openness as possible was key.WRIGHT In addition to what Lupita said, which was perfect, the preparation process coming back into this was definitely a spiritual one. I remember connecting a lot with Danai. When we got to Atlanta [where filming took place], we went for a walk in the park and just sat with each other and processed what it meant to begin again and what it would take. The beautiful thing I found was that I wasn’t alone. Coming back to the world of Wakanda, I felt like I had family that understood.GURIRA There are ways that you as an artist can try to have some control over what you’re stepping into. And for me, a lot of that is the training we do as the Dora Milaje. But it was also clear that there was another journey that we had to take. I remember sitting with Ryan, and he helped me process what felt different this time: It was grief. So grief intermingled with our process. There were things I couldn’t prepare for, like stepping into the throne room and remembering the last time I was there and getting really hit by that. And then, as Letitia said, we leaned on each other.FLORENCE KASUMBA I had to learn that I’m still not ready to speak about everything with everyone. I didn’t know when I was going to be triggered. But if that happened, I knew there were people I could be open with; coming to work felt like coming home. Also, the training helped a lot because we had to be so focused. It was a combination of losing ourselves but also making sure that we move as one again after such a long time.Mabel, you’re the newest member of this cast. What was it like becoming part of this “Black Panther community”?MABEL CADENA It was incredible. I didn’t speak the same language at the beginning, and the fight training was really hard for me, too. There were points when I felt really tired, but I was also inspired by these women every day. I’d say, “If these girls can, I can do more one day.” And then I’d speak to Ryan, and he’d give me the opportunity to build out my character as a Mexican woman. So, I was able to confront my fears and, at the same time, felt entirely safe with and grateful for these women.How intense was the training for your battle scenes?KASUMBA You have to be physically and mentally so sharp. I started training for this role in May 2021 because mentally, you need to understand that your body has to function for about a year. And because we work with weapons and can hurt ourselves, we also had to be confident enough to do our strikes while also making sure we didn’t harm our colleagues. The training from the first movie helped us because there’s a lot of muscle memory.GURIRA The literal training is very dependent on the story we’re telling. In the first film, there was a specific enemy and a specific response. Now, we are telling another story, so there are very specific drills to unify us. And then there’s a lot of individual work. I had a couple of injuries over the course of this one, and I had to fight through them. But I love it because, ultimately, it grounds the world. You have to know how to move and live in sort of an instinct of warriorness that is specific to your character.Cadena, center, said the director Ryan Coogler gave her “the opportunity to build out my character as a Mexican woman,” she said.Marvel StudiosLetitia, you were severely injured on set, right?WRIGHT My experience was different. There were a lot of physical challenges that I faced as well, but alongside that I came away really proud that in the face of adversity, I could bounce back and give that extra life and strength to my character. I think Mabel said it beautifully. Seeing everybody give 110 percent inspires you each day. The journey wasn’t pain-free, but you can stand on top of the mountain and say you did it. Hopefully, that transfers to the film, and people walk away feeling ecstatic and empowered because that’s definitely how we feel after making it.That is such a powerful image. Do you think people are more receptive to Black women as superheroes?BASSETT I think that remains to be seen. “Wakanda Forever” is poised to be the next film to really garner excitement for lots of people. Over a billion dollars’ worth of people hopefully will go to the movies. And who will they see but our faces? Black women’s faces. I love seeing it. In this day and age, you don’t have to wait for a few folks in a few offices at the top of a few buildings to make it happen. You know? Our voices are so compelling that they must be told.GURIRA [The first] film allowed us, as women characters, to gain even more complexity. And it’s important that it’s not just a one-moment thing, but you see Black and women of color characters grow and have more dimension.WRIGHT Today a girl told me, “I came out of the cinema feeling I can do anything after watching the film and seeing what Shuri presented to the world.”GURIRA If putting these characters in a heroic space propels that sense of ownership of self and what one can do with their own potential as young women and girls of color, that’s everything, really.WRIGHT It should become the norm because there are so many women out there that are so heroic and amazing. We just show a piece of that onscreen.“Black Panther” gave us a utopia that we do not necessarily have in real life. What excited you the most about the sisterhood you had as actresses or the female solidarity that your characters had for each other in “Wakanda Forever”?CADENA [It’s been said that] when a woman raises her voice, we all bloom. These words are really inspiring to me, and I think this is the legacy of the first movie. Before this, I had only worked in Mexico City, so working with these women and Ryan completely changed my life and the way I thought about my career. Now, I have new dreams and new expectations about the way I want to make women characters.BASSETT It all played out beautifully that I’ve had a bit more experience in my career and that they are coming up and doing the same great work. There’s a lot of respect. But it’s not only about the work that we do; it’s also about how we work with one another. If we lock arms, then it’s a much stronger piece.NYONG’O The undervaluing of women because of their gender doesn’t exist in Wakanda. We saw that in the first film, which is why it resonated. This new film continues with the conceit that this is a world where those things don’t exist. But the question we’re tackling is not their womanhood. It’s their beliefs, passions, loves and arguments, and it creates a robust drama. Hopefully, the world as we know it watches and is empowered by it, despite itself.What I love about the Wakanda story is that it offers us a version of a world that we are striving to get to. More

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      Marvel Studios Unveils ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

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      The studio announced news of the film’s release on Saturday at the pop-culture convention Comic-Con International in San Diego.Marvel Studios has unveiled a trailer for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — the long-awaited sequel to its hit film “Black Panther” — which it said would open in cinemas in the United States on Nov. 11.The teaser, screened on Saturday at the pop-culture convention Comic-Con International in San Diego, features several cast members from the first film, as well as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who played one of the protagonists, King T’Challa. Boseman, whose image appears on a mural in the teaser, died from colon cancer at age 43 in 2020.The film follows Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), General Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the elite women warrior group Dora Milaje (including Ayo, played by Florence Kasumba) as they “fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death,” the studio said on Saturday in a news release.“As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda,” the studio added.The trailer — a visually dazzling glimpse of the future world of Wakanda — is set to a cover of the Bob Marley song “No Woman, No Cry.” Ludwig Goransson, the film’s composer, described it as “an aural first glimpse of Wakanda Forever.”The “sound world” for the film, he said in the statement, was created during trips to Mexico and Nigeria, where he and others worked with traditional musicians to learn about the “cultural, social and historical contexts of their music.”Then, they built a catalog of instrumental and vocal recordings together with those artists, and “began to build a musical vocabulary for the characters, story lines and cultures of Talocan and Wakanda,” Goransson said, adding that the idea was to create “an immersive and enveloping sound world for the film.”The film’s release was announced by the president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, who also noted the upcoming release of several other films and shows, including “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” starring Tatiana Maslany; “Secret Invasion,” featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn; and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.”Speaking at the Comic-Con event on Saturday, Nyong’o said that it felt “monumental” to return to Wakanda. “The universe of Wakanda is expanding,” she said. “You guys have a lot to look forward to.”Gurira, who plays Okoye, the general of Wakanda’s elite female bodyguards and the head of armed forces and intelligence, said that when she was growing up in Zimbabwe she always looked up to the way America “made superheros onstage and on the big screen.”To the crowd, she added: “You’re taking in that culture, and you’re celebrating it. That, to me, is everything.” More