Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

  1. Lenny Henry, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, 2011.     The Oz TV find was originally due to join  Brian Blessed, Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleason, Hugh Grant and  David Tennant in voicing the pirate, Peg Leg Hastings, in the   “plunderful” toon from the home of Wallace and Gromit.  
  2. Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, 2017.   Spider-Man turned  up in the third Cap Am movie as a teaser  for his welcome-back-home-to-Marvel reboot. Idem for T’Challa/Black Panther in  Captain America: Civil War, 2015,  before this ground-breaking solo flight.  The finalists included four Brits: Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Algrim/Kurse in Thor: The Dark World), John Boyega (Finn in the 21st Century Star Wars), Noel Clarke (from Star Trek Into Darkness), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Mordo in Doctor Strange)…  Benin’s Djimon Hounsou (Korath in Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel)… four Americans: Boseman (best known for his James Brown in Get On Up, 2013), Chad L Coleman (from The Wire and Arrow), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon in films and TV) and Wesley Snipes, from way back in 1990, when the title was muddled with the 60s’ black activists. In fact, the comic came out two months before the group in 1965. Finally, Snipes was too old and supported Boseman’s take “1,000%.”Grossing $1bn, the actual Black Panther  film was #1 in the US for five weeks, until dethroned by Pacific Rim: Uprising starring… Boyega!

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  2