Young, gifted, and Black: Dominique Thorne enters the Wakandaverse

The journey to Wakanda from New York, by way of Delaware, has been (as she told The Inquirer) “full of unexpected twists and turns and lots of confusion” for actor Dominique Thorne, who plays Riri Williams — the 19-year-old genius studying at M.I.T. — in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Her parents — Trinidadian immigrants Nerissa Guy and Navie Guy — moved to Newark, Del., when Thorne was in college. Delaware, she said, gave “a gift of home” to her younger brothers, Ky-Mani and Caleb. “It was a beautiful space for them to be raised and go through their formative years. So it was a gift to me too,” she said.

Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thorne wanted to be an actor for as long as she can remember. She attended Manhattan’s Professional Performing Arts School and then went to Cornell to study human development, focusing on social and personality development. “The common thread through it all,” she said, “was the desire to be in the theatrical and film space. So I always stayed involved and connected to that world somehow.”

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When Thorne was a freshman at PPAS, she went down to the school’s black box theater and watched seniors perform their scenes for a play they’d perform every year. “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I’m gonna forget the name of this play right now,” she exclaimed on a day of marathon press interviews as she continued. “But there was this one iconic scene that the senior year teacher would give to the top two students in the class. I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna get that scene.’ That was my driving force for three years.”

Then, when it came to Thorne’s year, the acting teacher, Greg Parente, decided not to do that scene. The students were up in arms, and Parente relented. “I was doing this scene with a kid in my class named Charlie,” Thorne said, “And it was as fulfilling as I thought it would be. That was my dream role growing up.”

The play, Parente told The Inquirer, was John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. “The scene shows two loners in a bar. Charlie played Danny, an Italian guy from the Bronx who gets into fights, doesn’t communicate very well, and has these big emotions that he hasn’t been able to process,” Parente explained. Thorne played Roberta who sits in the bar drinking beer and eating pretzels.

“She is fierce,” he added, “as much of a lion as he is. Only she has the power to make him stay every time he wants to leave, and work through his emotions. She is able to open up this guy.” He wasn’t quite sure Thorne would be able to handle this role, which he reserves for his best and most ambitious students. But she did. Parente still remembers her “ferocity and intensity.”

Education director and artistic director of PPAS’s Waterwell Drama Program, Heather Laza, added that Thorne was also a part of a production of Qui Nguyen’s Begets: Fall of a High School Ronin, directed by Robert Ross Parker, in her final year.

When Thorne auditioned for the 2018 Black Panther, she wanted to play Shuri — the princess of Wakanda who turns up in Riri’s dorm room unannounced in Wakanda Forever. Having acted in no films then, Thorne didn’t quite have the experience the producers needed. “They did tell me they were interested in working with me,” she added.

When Wakanda Forever producer Nate Moore called Thorne in 2020, she had already made a debut playing Shelia Hunt in If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and followed it up with playing a Black Panther, Judy Harmon, in Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). “It was a beautiful thing,” Thorne said, “to see that once I did get the experience, they truly were interested in working with me, to see that they meant what they said.”

One of the first things Riri says in Wakanda Forever is — quoting playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry — “to be young, gifted, and Black,” in appreciation of her talent and genius. Not only does the line harken back to the late actor Chadwick Boseman’s SAG Awards acceptance speech, but it also adds force to the full-throated celebration of the vitality of Black youth leadership within the civil rights movement and in the kingdom of Wakanda.

“Folks are so blown away by how much women are leading the charge in this film. It goes behind the scenes,” Thorne said. “In order to tell certain stories effectively, it requires an authentic and a true amplification of a voice and an experience.” The Marvel Cinematic Universe, she said, recognizes that and is backing up that amplification by bringing in Black women in the writers’ room, behind the cameras, as actors.

According to a San Diego State University study, women accounted for only 25% of those working in key behind-the-scenes roles (directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, cinematographers) on the top 250 grossing films in 2021. While on-screen roles for Black women have seen an uptick, the behind-the-scenes scenario still remains painfully underrepresented.

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“The primary consideration for me [before taking on a role] is, asking what truth is being told,” Thorne said, “Who is it highlighting? What perspective is it taking on to tell this story? And how does it do so in a way that is most authentic?”

It is this authenticity Thorne brings to every role she plays — be it a love story, or something that amplifies the mission of the Black Panther Party. “It also does the work of representing a group of beautiful Black brilliant minds. You’re only able to encourage and inspire others if the thing that you’re doing is truthful and accurate in itself.”

Thorne, who has just wrapped production on the upcoming Disney+ miniseries, Ironheart, is taking a break from the MCU “and tapping into some new projects outside of the fantastical world.”

Is she finding time to rest? “I’ll rest on the flights, we’ll find rest when it comes. But I’m having fun for now,” she signed off.