Danai Gurira enjoyed Black Panther buzz cut

2 February 2018

Danai Gurira enjoyed being bald for her role in 'Black Panther'.

Danai Gurira

The 39-year-old actress stars in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie as Okoye - a member of the team of women who serve as special forces soldiers in the fictional African nation of Wakanda - and for the role, Gurira had to shave off her hair.

Although lacking locks means your head gets cold, Gurira appreciated not ever being able to have a "bad hair day".

Speaking on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live', Gurira said: "It's cold. This was in November, this was late November. It was a little cold. You just roll out of bed and cannot have a bad hair day. There's some ease with that, I'll tell you right now. I've had a short cut for a long time, but there's a big difference between a short cut and dolphin-smooth bald.

"At first, I was like, 'OK, this is good', but then the astounding Mr. Ken came in, who did my design on my head and he needed to get the mould of my skull, and he said, 'Oh no. No, no, no. That's not short enough.' And he started to do a little shavey-shave."

Gurira also said shaving her hair with the other women on the set of 'Black Panther' provided them with a "solidarity" with one another because there aren't that many bald women in the world.

She said: "Day by day, all my wonderful women in my army, started to come in with long hair one day and like me the next. We just started to have some solidarity. You don't see a lot of bald women walk around all the time."

Black Panther was created by legendary Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee and the equally iconic artist-and-writer Jack Kirby and first appeared in 'Fantastic Four #52' back in 1966.

The motion picture is expected to expand on the storyline that was first introduced in 'Captain America: Civil War' of how T'Challa - played by Chadwick Boseman - becomes the superhero.

T'Challa's father T'Chaka is king of Wakanda and has the ceremonial title Black Panther as the chief of the Panther Tribe, but is killed when a bomb goes off at the UN making his son the Black Panther.