Lupita Nyong’o and Chadwick Boseman starred together in Marvel’s Oscar-winning film, Black Panther. In 2020, Boseman died of colon cancer at the young age of 43. With Nyong’o taking on the role of Sam in A Quiet Place: Day One, she said her character’s disease helped her feel connected to her departed friend.
Related: All the tragic details of Chadwick Boseman’s death
The film—which is a prequel to John Krasinski’s hit thriller/horror A Quiet Place—begins with Nyong’o’s character in hospice care. She told People it was “scary to have to go there” with a character who “is really facing their mortality, even before this apocalypse takes place, and whose life is slipping between her fingers. That was daunting to have to go there, psychologically and emotionally.” So what disease does Sam have in A Quiet Place: Day One? Read on to find out what we know.
What disease does Sam have in A Quiet Place: Day One?
Sam has terminal cancer, though we’re not sure exactly what kind of cancer, but she does take Fentanyl to soothe the pain associated with it. According to MedCentral, some cancers may be more painful than others and it’s when the tumor presses on bone, nerves, or other organs that results in the worst discomfort.
“Many types of cancer frequently metastasize to multiple bones where they can cause significant, life-altering pain,” said Dr. Mantyh in a blog post. “Once cancer cells have metastasized to bones, they generate pain by directly injuring nerve fibers and inducing sensitization and activation of sensory and sympathetic nerve fibers that innervate the bone.”
Nyong’o said that playing a character who’s experiencing such pain was a cathartic experience, given she’d lost a friend in Boseman to this insidious disease. “In the end, it was actually very therapeutic because I had just experienced not too many years ago the death of Chadwick Boseman, which shook me to my core,” she continued to People. “I definitely was thinking about that a lot.”
In the film’s final moments, Sam makes the ultimate sacrifice to save her friend, Eric, and kitty Frodo (yes, named after that Frodo from The Lord of the Rings). The pain has gotten so bad that she can’t continue, and thus she chooses to distract the monsters so Eric and Frodo can safely board a ferry that’s leaving the city. In her final act, she plays Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” from 1965.
“It’s tragic, but it’s also satisfying that Sam is going out on her own terms,” Nyong’o told USA Today on Sam’s final song choice. “Nina Simone has an inbuilt melancholy in her voice, and it comes across in that song. It’s in complete contrast to what she’s saying—the words are, ‘And I’m feeling good.’ I think it treads that fine line between a cry of grief and euphoria somehow.”
A Quiet Place: Day One is in theaters now.
