Actors often take home mementos, such as props, from projects they work on. This was the case with a spear used by actress Danai Gurira, who plays Okoye in the Black Panther films. Turns out this was a good thing, because Gurira used it to kill a black widow spider in her home. She talked about this scary experience on a recent appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show.
“I’ve found a purpose for the spear, a household purpose which I never expected. Of late, I was in an outdoor stairway at my house and I found a black widow waiting for me at the base of the stairs,” Gurira recalls.
Jimmy took this moment to jokingly clarify it was not the character Black Widow, or actress Scarlet Johansson. Gurira said no, and continued her story.
“I wish, I wish. I knew it was a dangerous one, though, because it had the red thing, I found out later that’s what it was — I can’t. So now, I have my spear, because I need something of long length to get it out of the way, push the web out of the way, and I have Raid in the other hand. So now it’s a spear and Raid as I go up and down my stairs. That’s the use of it now,” she said.
Beyond its spider-killing abilities, the spear has sentimental value to Gurira. She muses: “It started to feel like an appendage, something you work with so much, you cannot leave it, you’ve gotta take it with you. Sorry, Marvel. It becomes a friend and it has been a friend in many ways, as of late. I choose to imagine it’s an extended loan that gets consistently renewed.”
Beyond sharing her funny anecdotes, Gurira was also on the show to promote the newest Black Panther movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. It is out in theaters on November 11.
