Danai Gurira Gets Emotional Telling Letitia Wright That Chadwick Boseman Would Be 'Very Proud' of Her

Danai Gurira is confident Chadwick Boseman would be proud of Letitia Wright's continuation of the Black Panther franchise.

On Thursday's episode of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt airing at 6:30 p.m. ET, journalist Rehema Ellis interviews Black Panther: Wakanda Forever stars Gurira, 44, and Wright, 29, about making the anticipated sequel in the wake of Boseman's death. Boseman died of colon cancer in August 2020 at the age of 43.

Wright, who plays sister to Boseman's character in the Marvel films, says, "The emotions are really raw. We really just gave our hearts to this and gave the truth of what we were feeling to the project. Definitely needed to balance it. Because there is a lot of adventure, a lot of humor in this movie. But also a strong feeling of purpose and a strong feeling of love towards our brother."

nightly news with Lester Holt

When asked whether they think Boseman would be proud of the new film, Wright says with a smile, "Yeah, I think he is. I think he would be."

Gurira agrees, getting emotional as she tells Wright, "I think he'd be very proud of you." She responds, "Bless you. Thank you," and the actresses then hold hands as Wright says the late star would be "proud of you too."

RELATED: Letitia Wright Says She Went Into a 'Downward Spiral' After Chadwick Boseman's Death

Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Disney Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright

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Gurira recently told PEOPLE "it meant everything to have each other" while making the film.

"It was not an easy journey. It was the whole journey through making this movie, getting it to the finish line," she said. "Sometimes it really felt like, are we going to make it? Even grief, you don't know when it's going to hit you. I really wanted to shout out the new cast members like Michaela [Coel] and Dominique [Thorne] because they seemed to just know to be there for us in certain ways, at certain moments."

She added, "The way that the world expanded beautifully, the right people came in and really understood that we were there to honor this man and we were going through grief as we pursued that goal."

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in theaters Friday.