Prior to accepting her award at this year’s Black Women In Hollywood ceremony, actress Dominique Thorne received a presenter from two of today’s most creative individuals – acclaimed director Ryan Coogler and Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya.
Coogler spoke about the first time he met the Cornell graduate, and how he was optimistic was to work with her in the future. “The first time I met Dominique was in 2016, and we were casting our film Black Panther. She was young; I think she was still in school at Cornell, and she blew us away. She got very far in the process,” the California native said.
“But it ended up not working out, and we went in a different direction,” he continued. “I was crushed that I wouldn’t get to work with her on that project. She was so good and so young, I thought that maybe our paths would cross again.”
The two would not have to wait long for the opportunity to collaborate, because Coogler’s company Proximity ended up producing Judas and the Black Messiah, and Coogler soon received an audition tape featuring a familiar face. “Our incredible director Shaka King said ‘hey, I got this tape for this woman for the part of Judy Harmon – I really want to cast her,” he said. “She was supposed to be this kind of bruiser. She was the muscle for that chair of the Panthers.”
“I open up the link and boom – there’s Dominique,” he said.