Lupita Nyong'o Says Chadwick Boseman's Cancer Death Helped Her Through 'A Quiet Place: Day One'
Lupita Nyong'o is sharing her emotional experience portraying a woman battling cancer in her latest film, A Quiet Place: Day One.
In the new sci-fi thriller, the Academy Award winner plays a Mnahattan-based poet named Sam, who is fighting terminal cancer and an untimely alien invasion.
Nyong'o reveals to PEOPLE that portraying Sam was emotionally intense: “It was scary to have to go there,” she shared, emphasizing her character's struggle with mortality “even before this apocalypse takes place, and whose life is slipping between her fingers.”
“That was daunting to have to go there, psychologically and emotionally,” the Us star added.
However, the emotional impact was heightened for the actress who suffered a tragic loss in August 2020 when her close friend and fellow Black Panther star actor Chadwick Boseman passed away from colon cancer at the age of 43. An experience she told the outlet “shook me to my core.” Boseman had kept his health battle private.
The 41-year-old explained, “In the end, it was actually very therapeutic,” noting, "I definitely was thinking about that a lot.”
She continued, “What I came to realize is that it's really important to be reminded of our mortality, because then we live life just a little more intentionally. When we think we have all the time in the world, we can really take people for granted and experiences for granted.”
A Quiet Place: Day One is in theaters now and is set to hit streaming platform Paramount+ in the upcoming months.
