Variety reports that Forest Whitaker is the latest high-profile actor to sign on to Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther movie, where he’ll play the role of Zuri, an elder statesman in the Wakandan government. In the comics, Zuri was a companion and cohort to Wakanda’s former king, T’Chaka—played, briefly, by John Kani in Captain America: Captain America: Civil War—and a frequent mentor to his son T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). He joins a cast that also includes Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o.
By taking the role, Whitaker joins an exclusive club: actors who’ve appeared in both Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as its Star Wars films. (The other notable members being Samuel L. Jackson, Doctor Strange’s Mads Mikkelsen, and Natalie Portman, even if she’s since retired from the MCU.) Whitaker is currently part of the cast of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, scheduled for a December 16 release; meanwhile, Black Panther will hit theaters on July 6, 2018.