Lupita Nyong’o is not someone who takes her job easily. She underwent rigorous underwater training to swim for ‘Black Panther 2’. Did you know Lupita did not have adequate training in swimming before? The answer for why she did not train in swimming before the movie is something no one ever could have imagined.
Her answer for not traning for swimming helms the culture of black women with their hair. Ryan Coogler, the director also noted that a “lot” of black people were “raised to have fear of water.” Read on to know more about Nyong’o’s training underwater and the reason why she did not train to swim earlier.
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What Was The Training Lupita Nyong’o Underwent For Her Role In ‘Black Panther 2’?
In a TikTok video shared on Saturday, the 39-year-old Oscar winner documented the intense swimming training she went through in order to portray her character, the Wakandan spy Nakia, in the recently released film. Her video was set to one of the tracks featured in the movie.
‘Con La Brisa’ by Foudeqush and Ludwig Göransson, Nyong’o begins the behind-the-scenes sneak peek by holding a dumbbell in her hand while swimming in the pool. She then starts to crawl and walk underwater using the same workout equipment in each hand. “How I trained to swim in Wakanda Forever,” Nyong’o wrote at the beginning of the video.
After she made her way out of the water to rest by the side of the pool, she added, “I felt like a crawfish.” “Swimming down to Talokan was not as easy as it looked! 🏊🏿♀️🌊🏝 Safely supervised by @XPT Life and #MarkRobertsFitness 🏋🏿♀️ #wakandaforever #blackpanther #talokan #underwater #fittok #behindthescenes,” Nyong’o captioned her post.
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Was Lupita Trained In Swimming Before Her Role In ‘Black Panther’?
Earlier this month, Nyong’o and her ‘Wakanda Forever‘ costar Angela Bassett shared their experiences with swimming, expressing to Variety that they were not particularly skilled in the water before shooting the film. “You know, Black girls have this history with water and their hair,” Bassett, 64, told the outlet. “Some of us can’t swim all that well, because it’s going to mess up that press and curl. It’s a whole thing.”
“Before we started this film, I knew how to swim, but I wasn’t a confident swimmer,” Nyong’o, added. “I didn’t need to swim in public, that’s for sure. That’s a lifelong skill that I now have.” Both actresses trained to the point where they could both hold their breath underwater for about two minutes, per Variety, which noted that cast member Mabel Cadena could hold her breath underwater for around six-and-a-half minutes.
About half of ‘Wakanda Forever”s scenes take place underwater, thanks to the addition of new antagonist Namor (Tenoch Huerta), who rules the secretive deep-sea land of Talokan. According to Variety, the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, also decided he needed to be on the same page with his cast members, who had to learn to free dive and train with free diving instructors and aquatic stunt teams for the movie.
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