It would make sense for anyone making a movie set in Africa– even if it’s set in a fictional nation– to attempt to hire an actor from Africa to appear in it. This is apparently what happened according to South African-native Trevor Noah, although his account may be a bit questionable. While visiting ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’, he recounted a mostly fabricated account of Ryan Coogler‘s attempts to woo Noah into appearing in an important role in ‘Black Panther’.
As Noah humbly stated “I don’t like to brag about this…I was in Black Panther, the smash hit.” Noah joked that Coogler wanted him to play King T’Challa the lead character, but this was his response. “I said, ‘No, no, no, I’ve got the Daily Show and he said okay I’ll get Chadwick Boseman.”
Noah then joked that he was offered the villain role, stating that Coogler asked him to “do the whole thing that Michael B. Jordan does” but Noah’s excuse was that there would be too many six packs on the set.
But quips aside, what role did Noah play in ‘Black Panther’?
“I’m like, ‘I will be the voice of the computer in the background, the computer that runs everything’ — every spaceship you see is me. A lot of people think I just did the lines there, but I’m everything. I’m the ship as well. They got me in to play the ship.”
He then attempted to impersonate a spaceship. But in all honesty, Noah did provide the voice of Griot, the AI created by Shuri (Letitia Wright), which helps guide Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) when he has to jump into the battle toward the end of the movie. (A griot is a term used to refer to a West African entertainer, storyteller or oral historian.)
You can watch the sequence below:
If you’d like to see Noah’s visit to the ‘Late Late Show’, you can watch it below:
So now we know! Trevor Noah sort of had a cameo in ‘Black Panther’. Will Griot return in the sequel? We’ll have to wait and see!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
