Lupita says Chadwick Boseman’s cancer death helped her through ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ | News

Lupita Nyong’o shares her emotional experiences playing a woman battling cancer in her latest film. A quiet place: day one.

In the new science fiction thriller, the Oscar winner plays a Mnahattan poet named Sam who battles incurable cancer and an unexpected alien invasion.

Nyong’o reveals PEOPLE that portraying Sam was very emotional: “It was scary to have to go there,” she said, emphasizing her character’s struggle with mortality, “even before this apocalypse happens and her life slips through her fingers.”

“It was discouraging to have to go there, psychologically and emotionally,” said the Us Star added.

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However, the emotional burden was even greater for the actress, who suffered a tragic loss in August 2020 when her close friend and colleague Black Panther Star actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43, an experience she told the outlet “shook me to the core.” Boseman had kept his health battle secret.

“In the end, it was actually very therapeutic,” the 41-year-old explained, noting, “I definitely thought about it a lot.”

She continued, “I realized that it’s really important to be reminded of our mortality because then we live life a little more consciously. When we think we have all the time in the world, we can take people and experiences for granted.”

A quiet place: day one is now in theaters and will be released on the streaming platform Paramount+ in the coming months.