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Winston duke tv shows1/11/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "It's been a blessing," he told Variety last year. That project ended up being the Oscar-winning film "Black Panther," in which Duke made his feature film debut as the warrior M'Baku.Īfter the film's release in February 2018, the Yale alum says that his life changed drastically. In 2016, the trajectory of his career took a major turn when his agent sent him to an audition for an as-yet-untitled Marvel project. "If I committed this much attention and intention to anything else, I'm pretty sure I'd be successful at it." More on my conversation with Duke-plus the the details of his Black Panther premiere look, with styling by Jenny Ricker and grooming by Danielle Crawford-ahead."'What am I doing?'" he says he would ask himself on many occasions. I’d describe my opportunity to write for a living, sharing his story and others’, the exact same way. “This experience has just been.everything,” he says of appearing in and promoting Black Panther. Throughout the evening we talked fashion and pre-party rituals-as we always do when we hang out with someone before a big, fancy event-but we also talked a lot about Duke’s life, how meaningful this role is to him, and how serendipitous it is that our paths crossed again-at a time in our lives when all that hustling is beginning to pay off. He left the east coast in 2016 for L.A., and that same year, after months of auditions and call-backs, was cast as supervillain M’Baku in Black Panther-arguably the most highly anticipated film of the year. “Getting back into the real world you’re like, ‘Who do I meet? Who do I talk to? Who are the people whose energies feel like kindred spirits because they’re also out here hustling and creating opportunities for themselves?’ And I think that’s what I saw in you.” (Indeed, I was hustling I still am.)ĭuke, who was born in Tobago and moved to Brooklyn when he was 10 with his mother and older sister, went on to land roles in Person of Interest and Modern Family, among other TV shows. “I was auditioning like crazy and hadn’t even booked my first television appearance,” Duke says of what he was up to when we first met. I scrolled through my Facebook messages, saw our last correspondence-dated June 22, 2013-and sent him a message: “It’s been ngrats!.I’ve landed at Coveteur.we’d love to do something with you.” He responded: “It has been ngrats on Coveteur!.I’d love to.” A few emails to and from his publicist later, and our photographer and I were in Duke’s midtown Manhattan hotel room, catching up and taking photos before the NYC Black Panther premiere. That meet-up never happened, though.until earlier this week.Īfter weeks of seeing Winston’s face on Black Panther posters and red carpets-but not knowing why he looked so familiar-it clicked: Winston Duke-that’s the guy I met at Von forever ago. A few months later, in May 2013, he wrote me a message saying that he’d be back in the city soon and we should hang out. We clicked over our shared young, black, creative, and hungry identities, and became Facebook friends on the dance floor (so Millennial of us, I know). Winston told me that he was studying acting at Yale and would be graduating in a few months. At the time, I was a flat-broke freelance writer trying to carve out a career in fashion editorial (and had taken several shots at home so I didn’t have to pay for drinks at the bar). In late 2012, I was out at legendary NYC bar and late-night dance haunt Von, when a guy named Winston introduced himself to me. ![]()
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