Marvel Studios(NEW YORK) — Sydelle Noel’s role in Black Panther as Xoliswa — one of Wakanda’s royal guard of elite female fighters called the the Dora Milaje — may have been brief, but it was powerful.
With the film’s record breaking success — currently the third highest-grossing film ever in the U.S. — Noel says she and her Black Panther co-stars could almost pinpoint the moment when they realized their film had the potential to change history.
“We all had this, this vision when we were actually shooting,” Noel, who also stars in the Netflix series Glow, tells ABC Radio. “We felt it. We felt this, like, kinetic energy during the waterfall scene. That’s when literally, like everybody was there. Everybody, the whole entire cast was in that waterfall scene.”
She continues, “And we had moments when it was like, ‘Cut!’ And we had people just drumming in the background and we were like dancing having a good time and I remember Angela Bassett was like, ‘Do you just feel this? Like, look around like look what we’re creating right now.” And I was like, ‘Yes.'”
The “waterfall” moment Noel is referring to is the fight scene where T’Challa is challenged for his birthright as king and later faces off with Killamonger for his throne. Noel adds that even Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker felt it.
“And then Forest Whitaker walked over and he was like, ‘I just have a feeling that this is going to be huge,'” she added. “And everybody just looked around and we were just looking at each other and just seeing the moment from the background people, from the stunt people, to just everybody. This might be a big huge deal.”
Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Letitia Wright, is now available on DVD.
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