Angela Bassett and several of her co-stars suffered “sunburned eyes” following several days of shooting Black Panther outdoors.
The actress portrays Ramonda, mother of Chadwick Boseman’s character T’Challa/ Black Panther, the leader of the fictional African nation Wakanda, in the hit superhero movie.
While Angela had a ball working on the film, she admitted during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night (13Mar18) that shooting the waterfall scenes on an outdoor set in Atlanta, Georgia took a toll on all of those involved.
“It was blazing hot, we did 10-hour days, which they call ‘French hours’ – which really means get lunch when you can,” she shared. “We were out in the open, under the sky, hot sun, and they had lights beaming down on us.”
The first day of shooting was fine but after the second day had wrapped, Angela began to consider whether a technician had put too much chlorine in the water. Then, on the third day, the star really began to feel concerned.
“I’m looking at Daniel Kaluuya, Lupita (Nyong’o) and their eyes are getting really, really red, especially Daniel’s – they were bloodshot red,” the 59-year-old continued. “So, the next morning you come to set and you cannot open your eyes. They’re testing pH balance. But what they didn’t think… (was) we were getting sunburned, our eyes got sunburned – the light was reflecting and back up to us.”
Daniel’s eyes hurt so much that he was forced to make a trip to the emergency room, and after he returned to set, all cast and crew members were required to sport sunglasses and stand under umbrellas when they weren’t acting.
Sunburned eyes, also known as photokeratitis, is caused by exposure of insufficiently protected eyes to ultraviolet rays from sunshine or artificial sources, and is akin to a sunburn of the cornea or conjunctiva.
