Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's super secret cameo actor finally addresses their role

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The actor said he had to lie to his entire family for months to keep his involvement in the Marvel sequel a secret

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(Image credit: Disney/Marvel)

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. If you've yet to watch the movie, turn back now.

Michael B. Jordan has finally opened up about his MCU return as Erik Killmonger in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Almost a month on from the superhero sequel's release, the actor has recalled the lengths he went to keep his involvement in the movie a secret.

"I had to lie to my family over here," Jordan admitted in a new interview with Extra TV. "I had to lie to everybody out here… I had to just keep it under wraps… When you're dealing with Marvel and stuff like that, you know the routine. So you just gotta, you know, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny until the end of it, yeah."

"I had to lie to my whole family," the actor said in another interview with ET Online. "See what Marvel had me doing? Lied to my whole family, it's crazy."

Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sees Shuri (Letitia Wright), Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and the rest of the titular kingdom mourn T'Challa, following his death from an illness in its opening scene. The pair are forced to put their grief aside and fight for their people, though, when Namor, the ruler of the mysterious underwater nation of Talokan, threatens them after corrupt government officials try to steal precious vibranium.

Killmonger's comeback in the flick was certainly unexpected, given the fact that the character died at the end of the original 2018 outing. In Wakanda Forever, Shuri unexpectedly encounters his spirit on the Ancestral Plane, after ingesting the juices of the Black Panther-making heart-shaped herb, and gaining superpowers. There, he urges to follow in his footsteps and exact revenge on Namor for killing her mother, rather than look for a more peaceful solution like her late brother would have. 

Amy West
Amy West

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.