'Black Panther' stars discuss film's impact at SAG Awards as film returns to theaters for free for Black History Month
Marvel Studios' "Black Panther" had a remarkable night at the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, taking home the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Backstage, cast members told ABC News' Chris Connelly how much the win meant to them.
"It's pretty incredible honestly," actor Michael B. Jordan, the film's villain, Erik Killmonger, told Connelly.
"You get up every day, every morning, get a chance to do what you love to do with people that you call your family, you know?" he continued.
"It was a family affair -- from Ryan Coogler, to Marvel, to Chadwick and everybody else on the cast, to the wardrobe, the set designers," he added. "Honestly every day we were all involved with the process to create this -- this thing that has made such an impact on people across the world."
"It also felt like a welcome," another one of the film's stars, Danai Gurira, said. "You know what I mean? Like we were being -- we were welcomed. And when we got up there, I remember I was very moved by how everyone was standing."
"You're in a room with people you do respect and admire and you have for -- possibly all your life," she continued. "It felt like they were welcoming us into the community in a really beautiful way."
Lupita Nyong'o spoke about the meaning attached to her part in the film.
"It's been moving to be able to be someone's role model, to be someone -- an example -- for someone who may not have had very many examples -- that are my complexion, you know?" she told Connelly. "And hopefully with a film like this we get more."
Angela Bassett, who played Queen Ramonda, said she didn't know if she would ever see a moment like this in her lifetime.
"I never thought I'd have an opportunity to be here, to embrace one of those statues," she said.
"But it's a community. It's a community of actors. It feels like it's a family, right?" she continued. "It really is. And some of them are members whose work you admire, who you may never have an opportunity to work with, but you admire. And, as you said, they're standing there because they've been watching you as well."
During the acceptance speech for the film's big win, Chadwick Boseman delivered a powerful message about what he's taken away from the film's massive success.
"When I think of going to work every day -- and the passion, the intelligence, the resolve, the discipline that everybody has shown -- I also think of two questions that we all have received during the course of multiple publicity runs," he said. "One is, 'Did we know that this movie was going to receive this kind of response?'"
"The second question is, 'Has it changed the industry? Has it actually changed the way this industry works and how it sees us?'" he continued. "And my answer to that is to be young, gifted and black."
"To be young, gifted and black, we all know what it's like to be told that there is not a place for you to be featured ... we know what it's like to be beneath and not above, and that is what we went to work with every day because we knew ... that we had something special that we wanted to give the world," he added.
The movie will return to theaters on Feb. 1 -- for one week -- in honor of Black History Month.
Fans can see the film for free at 250 participating AMC Theaters locations.
Marvel and ABC News are both owned by parent company Disney.
