Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Kenan Thompson “almost cried” before crashing Chadwick Boseman’s Saturday Night Live monologue.
The 48-year-old actor, who joined the sketch comedy show back in 2003, has reflected on the moment he dressed up as ThunderCats character Panthro to join the Black Panther actor on stage.
Speaking at New York Comic Con, he said: “My ultimate, favourite ‘Can I get them to build something crazy that I love personally?’ and was like ‘If this is just for me, I would be totally fine with that,’ it was Panthro.”
Kenan recalled how he avoided looking at his finished costume “until it was done”.
He added: “I didn’t want to look in the mirror until it was done.
“And when I looked I almost cried because it was my childhood coming to life.”
Kenan described the moment itself, joining Chadwick on stage as Panthro, was “for the culture”.
He added: “[Chadwick] was having such a major movement… It was a dynamic, silly thought that turned into something really amazing.”
During the April 2018 skit, Kenan crashed the stage as Panthro, claiming to be the original Black Panther.
That same episode, Chadwick reprised his role as Black Panther, AKA King T’Challa, for a Black Jeopardy skit.
Back in 2021, Kenan told Atlanta magazine: “It was another unforgettable week we got to spend with him.
“I remember him being a hyper-focused individual; he wanted to figure it out. We were trying to figure out how to step up his episode past Tom Hanks, because he’d just done it, and that was the pinnacle for that sketch up until that point.”
Kenan recalled how they “were struggling to figure out how to get him bigger and bigger laughs” until everything clicked into place.
He added: “We finally tightened it at the very end; he found it as well. It was a beautiful realisation to hear what we were finding with the characters being matched by the audience watching it.
“It was just brilliant: another experience of building on something all week that’s done best when it’s live. Chadwick couldn’t have been more nice, gracious, loving, and creative.”
Chadwick died in August 2020 at the age of 43, having been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, which he kept a secret.
