Lupita Nyong'o Celebrates Late Chadwick Boseman's Birthday with Throwback Photo: 'A Heroic Friend'

"I am blessed that his time on this earth coincided with mine," Lupita Nyong'o wrote of her 'Black Panther' costar Chadwick Boseman in a new Instagram post

Lupita Nyong'o is celebrating her late friend Chadwick Boseman's birthday.

On Wednesday, Nyong'o shared a Polaroid photo of herself, Boseman, who died of colon cancer at 43 in 2020, their Black Panther director Ryan Coogler and costar Michael B. Jordan all posing together. In her caption, Nyong'o, 40, explained that she snapped the photo in 2018 while Coogler and the Black Panther cast were promoting the film in South Korea. Wednesday marked the late star's 47th birthday.

"Marking the birthday of a heroic friend," she wrote in the post's caption. "I am blessed that his time on this earth coincided with mine."

Nyong'o and Boseman costarred in Marvel Studios' 2018 film Black Panther; Boseman portrayed T'Challa, the newly crowned king of the fictional nation Wakanda. Nyong'o played Nakia, a Wakandan warrior who has a romantic relationship with T'Challa.

Related: Chadwick Boseman's Wife Says She Sees 'Signs' from Her Late Husband 'All of the Time' as She Releases Debut Album

Boseman kept his years-long battle with cancer private even from those he worked with, leaving Nyong'o to describe the aftermath of his death as "a punch to my gut every morning" in an Instagram post she shared weeks after he died.

Nyong'o, Coogler and Jordan all returned for Black Panther's sequel, Wakanda Forever, which released in 2022.

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Nyong'o has made a habit of paying tribute to Boseman on the anniversary of his death over the last three years. This past August, she shared another photo she snapped of Boseman during Black Panther's press tour in South Korea in 2018, reflecting at the time that she "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 wrote in that post.

Related: Chadwick Boseman, Michelle Yeoh, Gal Gadot and More to Get Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars in 2024

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

Boseman made his final acting appearances in the 2020 movies Da 5 Bloods and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The latter film earned the actor a posthumous Oscar nomination in 2021. He is among a number of entertainment industry figures set to receive stars on Los Angeles's Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2024.

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