Meet English actor David Jonsson, Marvel’s new Black Panther
The star of The Long Walk, Industry and Alien: Romulus will portray the son of the first Black Panther, T’Challa, played by the late Chadwick Boseman
The announcement comes almost six years after Chadwick Boseman, the first actor to play Marvel’s Black Panther, died tragically aged 43 from colon cancer.
Here’s everything to know about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s newest hero, David Jonsson.
Where is David Jonsson from?
David Jonsson was born in September 1993, the youngest of four children, and grew up in East London. He describes his ethnicity as Creole, with Nigerian, Sierra Leonean, Caribbean and Swedish heritage. Raised in a middle-class household, he was the son of a policewoman and a Heathrow Airport IT engineer. Jonsson told the Guardian he would go to the cinema with his father on Saturdays, and that he loved the arts and poetry from a young age.
After getting into one too many fights at school, Jonsson was expelled and sent to a local Pupil Referral Unit, where he stayed until he was considered ready to return to mainstream education. “Being there shook me up,” he told the Guardian. “At first it felt pretty small. … A lot of my mates were in actual trouble, not schoolboy stuff: stabbings, gangs, real crime; unplanned pregnancies. But being there, it dawned on me how serious this might be. It was a real wake-up call.”
Eager for a fresh start, Jonsson transferred to a new school, where he joined productions of Richard II and Cabaret.