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'Black Panther' Actress Reveals Her Big Answer to Prayer to CBN News

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Marvel Comics' "Black Panther" began its ride to breaking box office records long before it hit theater screens on February 15, 2018. 

Actor Chadwick Boseman is commandingly impressive as T'Challa, the Black Panther. But critics and audiences are also singing the praises of Letitia Wright, who plays his sister and Wakanda's princess, Shuri. 

For the 24-year-old actress, the movie role is an answer to a prayer she began praying as a child.

As a pre-teen, the acting bug bit Wright when she watched fellow Black Panther star Angela Basset and Keke Palmer in the movie "Akeelah and the Bee." Bassett is playing the mother of T'Challa and the young princess in Black Panther.

"It is a full circle moment," Wright said in a recent interview with CBN News' Studio 5.

For the latest in uplifting, entertainment news be sure to check out Studio 5. Watch this week's special "Black Panther" episode below! 

"(Akeelah and the Bee) really inspired me. It really made me want to become an actor because I saw someone that looked like me that wanted to do something positive. That is what I wanted to pour out into the world. To now play this character and having my mother be Angela Basset is kind of surreal," Wright said.

"It is something I was pretty much praying about since I was a kid. I just want to do something meaningful in the world. I want to contribute positively. That means the roles I get to play as well."   

"Just to have something in my career, a pinnacle moment of inspiration, I feel like this does it very well."

Wright is not alone in her prayer that this much anticipated Marvel film will be an inspiration to those who see it. Bassett was moved to see how her own 12-year-old daughter reacted the first time she saw it.

Bassett told Studio 5, "We can look at our children and we can see when they are a little shy or a little intimidated. But that evening I could see her rise up and feel something glorious and strong and powerful within her being. It was evident and it was beautiful. That is what you want to see. That is what you long to see. That is what you know is available in your children's lives."         

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About The Author

Efrem Graham
Efrem
Graham

Efrem Graham is an award-winning journalist who came to CBN News from the ABC-owned and operated station in Toledo, Ohio. His most recent honor came as co-anchor of the newscast that earned the station’s morning news program its first Emmy Award. Efrem was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, but his formal television and journalism career was born across the Hudson River in New York City. He began as an NBC Page and quickly landed opportunities to work behind-the-scenes in local news, network news, entertainment, and the network’s Corporate Communications Department. His work earned him the NBC