He was often alone as his mother worked a lot and his older sister pursued her dream to become a doctor. There, a young Duke had been surrounded by a village filled with over two hundred relatives. At barely ten, he, his mother and sister came to Brooklyn from their native Tobago, the less populous sister island to Trinidad. “It’s been one big roller coaster but I keep myself grounded and focused.” During his lean times, he says he always prayed for work but never for fame and that mindset is serving him now.Īs a young kid, Duke never thought of acting at all. “It’s like nothing else,” he says of his ride since Black Panther’s release. READ: ‘Black Panther’ Adds Winston Duke As The Film’s Villain with Okayplayer trying to make sense of it all. Mere days before the mammoth release of just his second film ever, Duke was on the phone from L.A. Falcon) and Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes a.k.a. And his spot in Marvel’s other highly anticipated film, Avengers: Infinity War, released April 27, capitalizes on that.ĭuke’s M’Baku proved so popular that he found himself doing press for Infinity War with Marvel Cinematic Universe veterans Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson a.k.a. Somehow in his motion picture debut, Duke managed to shine alongside the far more well-known actors, Chadwick Boseman, who is T’Challa/Black Panther, and Michael B. His portrayal of M’Baku, his Black Panther character who leads the self-isolating Jabari Tribe in Wakanda, was just that affecting. In many African nations, the color purple symbolizes royalty and prosperity and Duke was certainly representing every bit of it that night. Apparently that purple suit covering his six-foot-five frame had been wisely selected. Even when Oprah Winfrey, one of the main stars of the Ava DuVernay-directed film, showed up, Duke remained a draw. There he was on the carpet for the A Wrinkle in Time premiere in Hollywood with newly minted fans in queue to pose for pics. 16 release, there was no denying that Winston Duke’s life had significantly changed.
Not even a full two weeks after Black Panther’s then long-awaited Feb. Source: Marvel Studios | Ringer Illustrations It’s no secret that Winston Duke’s life has irrevocably changed since Marvel’s Black Panther became a hit, and now, we ask him to make sense of it all.