Winston Duke, Star of 'Black Panther' and 'Us,' Wants to Shatter Your Expectations
Chameleonism is no mean feat for any actor, but when you’re six-foot-five, it’s a lot harder. That’s what makes Winston Duke’s genre fluidity all the more impressive—even with a can’t-miss physique, he sinks with ease into roles as disparate as comic-book hero, drug lord, and highbrow-horror protagonist. Chalk it up to his childhood: As a boy growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, Duke was steeped in stories and characters.
“I was always around storytelling—it was a way of life,” the 32-year-old says. “I was always told stories about cousins or neighbors, fantastical stories that included magic and folklore—those things shaped me.”
Duke was born in the Tobagonian village of Argyle, the son of a single mother who worked for the government and owned a restaurant on the side. When he was nine years old, his mother sold everything she owned to pack herself and her two children off to Brooklyn, where they lived in a studio apartment to facilitate his sister’s dream of becoming a doctor.
Around 20 years and two acting degrees later (from the University at Buffalo and the Yale School of Drama), Duke captured the public’s imagination with Black Panther, last year’s highest-grossing film, in which he costarred as M’Baku, the scene-stealing leader of a renegade Wakandan tribe. (You might remember him better as the guy who barked at Martin Freeman.) To audiences, he could have seemed like the proverbial overnight sensation, but for the journeyman actor, who spent his twenties doing regional theater and playing small roles on television shows like Modern Family, it didn’t quite feel instantaneous.
“Black Panther changed how people see me, but it hasn’t changed me as an artist,” Duke says. “It’s a reflection of all the things that came before. My time doing August Wilson, my time studying Brecht and Ibsen. It feels like an overnight success because I’m exposed to more people, but the work’s been there.”
This month, Duke takes the lead in Us, Jordan Peele’s highly anticipated chaser to Get Out, a debut feature that handily won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, grossed more than $250 million at the box office, and upended expectations of what a horror film can be. Peele spent the past four months teasing a film just as singular and provocative as Get Out.
Duke stars as a suburban dad alongside mom Lupita Nyong’o, with whom he appeared in Black Panther. Their friendship goes even further back—they grew close as classmates at Yale, where Duke always admired Nyong’o’s fierce talent.
“During Black Panther, I said to Lupita, ‘I can’t wait until you’re leading a movie. I can’t wait until people get to see you the way I’ve known you for such a long time,’ ” Duke says. “To be supporting her as a black woman in a leading role, it brings tears to my eyes.”
As Peele continues to transform the horror genre with cerebral, socially conscious films, the resonance of Us isn’t lost on Duke, a vocal advocate for racial justice and gender equality.
“It’s a powerful statement,” he says, “that this is a movie with a family of African descent as the leads in a genre that usually uses them as sacrifices or plot momentum—the black friend gets killed in the forest, the black friend gets killed first. It’s a wonderful addition to the film landscape to have a black family at the center.”
Up next, a different shade for the chameleon. Duke will star opposite Mark Wahlberg in Wonderland, a Peter Berg crime drama, after reprising his role as M’Baku in Avengers: Endgame. Beyond that, he’s eager to lend his talents to projects “that are in conversation with larger social issues,” and now that he’s no longer hiding in plain sight, he’ll have his pick of roles.
“My mother constantly reminded me that the race is not for the swift, but for those who can endure to the end,” Duke says. “That’s something I’ve carried with me through coming to this country and entering this industry. My ultimate goal is to last to the end.”
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