In the process, Angela Bassett played Queen Ramonda in Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, earning critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination.
Talking to PEOPLE for their "Women Changing the World" issue, the actress once again paid tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman. He died in 2020 following a secret battle with colon cancer, a tragedy which left fans and his MCU co-stars reeling.
"That was my last day of shooting, and we were at the falls in Warrior Falls," Bassett remembers. "I had finished my assignment and Chadwick came and hugged me. And I just hugged him and just embraced him. And of course it was a glorious set filled with splendid beauty and people and music and pride."
"To see the work that he was doing and to have come to know, every day, the human being that he was - sometimes you don't have to say much, but you can just look into one another's eyes and convey all that you mean, all that you hope."
"You don't know what the future brings," the Oscar-nominee said of the T'Challa actor's untimely death, later revealing that they first met years before he found fame when she delivered the commencement speech at Howard University in 2000.
"To have come to know this young man who was a student when I got an honorary degree at Howard, he was my escort," Bassett says. "It was a full circle moment to come and now the great opportunity I had to portray his mother."
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever paid tribute to Boseman by revealing that T'Challa had also died in the MCU (from an unknown, though presumably the same, disease that took the actor's life). In the sequel's closing moments, we met his son, also named T'Challa, who will likely one day inherit the mantle from Shuri.
At the 2023 Golden Globe Awards, Bassett similarly paid tribute to the massive impact Boseman had on the world when she said, "Weeping may come in the evening, but joy comes in the morning."
"We embarked on this journey together with love. We mourned. We loved. We healed. And we were surrounded each and every day by the light and the spirit of Chadwick Boseman."
"We have joy in knowing that with this historic Black Panther series, it is a part of his legacy that he helped to lead us to. We showed the world what Black unity, leadership and love looks like beyond, behind in front of the camera," Bassett concluded.
Marvel Studios has yet to announce plans for Black Panther 3 or Shuri's MCU future.