Who Voices Shuri's AI Griot In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?
The reviews for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" are starting to trickle in, both from professional critics and fans on social media. And the overall verdict is largely positive (via Rotten Tomatoes). Sure, some moviegoers and their poor bladders were unhappy with its 2-hour and 41-minute run time, but aside from that, the praise is abundant. Fans were especially impressed with the actors' performances, as well as how well the heart and soul of everyone working hard on the project shined through to give Chadwick Boseman the tribute he deserved.
But there was one performance in the movie that will likely go overlooked by the vast majority of viewers. In both the original "Black Panther" and the newly debuted sequel, Shuri has an artificial intelligence (AI) program named Griot which, unlike other techno-entities in the MCU, is monotone and succinct, though it has more to say in the sequel. But there's a very famous celebrity responsible for voicing Griot, and once you realize who it is, it makes the film that much better.
Griot is voiced by none other than Trevor Noah
Not only is the exiting "Daily Show" host officially credited on IMDb as reprising his role for the sequel, but he's been playing coy about confirming it on the late-night TV circuit. During a recent "Tonight Show" interview with Jimmy Fallon, he reminisced about playing "the African version of Siri" in the first "Black Panther" movie and, when Fallon asked him point-blank whether he would be in the sequel or not, would only say that "you should watch it." In the minutes preceding the question, Noah talked at length about how much he hates spoilers and deceptive movie trailers, so not only is his ambiguity a good marketing gimmick, but it falls right in line with his character.
What little voice work he did in the original "Black Panther," he performed with muted emotion and a matter-of-fact tone that one might expect to be programmed into an artificial intelligence assistant. There was no witty banter, such as with previous AI that belonged to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), like J.A.R.V.I.S. (Paul Bettany) and F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Kerry Condon). But Noah did have a lot of fun talking about his experience on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," cracking jokes about how he turned down multiple starring roles, and facetiously adding that he played every single flying ship that is shown on screen. Truly, his range as an actor knows no bounds.
Noah made a prophetic prediction about how successful Black Panther would be
The first "Black Panther" movie was released on February 16, 2028, And its star, Chadwick Boseman, appeared on "The Daily Show" for an episode that aired on March 1 of that same year. In the interview, Boseman and Noah discussed many things about the movie, including how he would forever be greeted for the rest of his life in the traditional Wakandan style of arms crossed over the chest, and the heartwarming universal appeal that the film was having with audiences. At the very end of the interview, as Noah was shaking hands with Boseman and saying goodbye, he — at least somewhat jokingly — declared that the film was "welcomed, it was electric, and it's going to make a billion dollars plus," to which the studio audience gave a raucous cheer.
Did Noah make a lucky guess? We would argue that it was more educated than lucky. After all, billion-dollar movies don't just happen every day. According to a Rotten Tomatoes editorial on all of the billion-dollar movies ever made, there are only about 50 or so as of this writing. And "Black Panther" ranks an impressive #5 on that list, having earned a grand total of nearly $1.35 billion dollars. Furthermore, it should be noted that Noah made his prediction about two weeks before the movie's skyrocketing popularity hit that billion-dollar bullseye. According to Variety, gross box office movie ticket sales didn't hit that magic mark until 26 days into its first theatrical release — and Boseman's interview with Noah happened a full two weeks before that.