Lupita Nyong’o Says ‘A Quiet Place’ Cancer Storyline After Chadwick Boseman Loss Was “Therapeutic”: “I Definitely Was Thinking About That A Lot”

Chadwick Boseman and Lupita Nyong'o Cindy Ord/Getty Images

While filming A Quiet Place: Day One, Lupita Nyong’o says that Chadwick Boseman was on her mind.

In the thriller, the Oscar winner plays a poet with terminal cancer fighting for her life against a backdrop of an alien invasion.

“That was daunting to have to go there, psychologically and emotionally,” Nyong’o told People about playing a character who “is really facing their mortality, even before this apocalypse takes place, and whose life is slipping between her fingers.”

“In the end, it was actually very therapeutic because I had just experienced not too many years ago the death of Chadwick Boseman, which shook me to my core,” she said. “I definitely was thinking about that a lot.”

Nyong’o said that through this experience, she realized “that it’s really important to be reminded of our mortality, because then we live life just a little more intentionally.”

She continued, “When we think we have all the time in the world, we can really take people for granted and experiences for granted.”

Last year, Nyong’o remembered Boseman with a touching tribute on social media on the third anniversary of his death.

“Three years ago today, I experienced a singular pain at the news of @chadwickboseman’s death. The confusion was so profound that it took months to trust the feeling of joy again,” she shared on Instagram in August 2023.

“Death is hard to understand, maybe even harder to accept. But the love generated from the life he lived will fuel every anniversary marking his absence,” Nyong’o added. “Chadwick may no longer be in our photos, but he will always be in our hearts.”