Amandla Stenberg Turned Down Black Panther For Darker-Skinned Actors

In an interview with CBC, Amandla Stenberg revealed she turned down a role in Marvel’s Black Panther to make way for darker-skinned actors to have parts. Stenberg is biracial. Here are highlights:

On why she didn’t take the role in Black Panther: “One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from Black Panther. I got really, really close and they were like, ‘do you want to continue fighting for this?’ And I was like, this isn’t right. These are all dark skin actors playing Africans and I feel like it would have just been off to see m as a bi-racial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I’m the same colour as everyone else in the movie.”

On turning it down: “That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognize 100 per cent that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it’s because I’ve thought really, really critically about it and I’ve consulted people I really trust and it feels right.”