[8] As a child, Duke worked at his mother's restaurant, seating customers at their tables and learned how to "charm" strangers at an early age.

[citation needed] The three of them settled in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, New York City, where Cindy could attend medical school.

[12][13] In 2012 Duke returned to his native Trinidad and Tobago to appear in the theatre production of An Echo in the Bone starring alongside actress Taromi Lourdes Joseph and directed by fellow Yale alumna Timmia Hearn Feldman.

[16] Wesley Morris of The New York Times named his performance in Black Panther as one of the best in 2018, describing him as "funny, shameless [and] imposing".

[22] He starred in Nine Days (2020), directed by Edson Oda, as a manager who interviews unborn souls and selects them to live on Earth.

[24] It was reported in July 2021 that Duke would be playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in the Spotify podcast audio drama Batman Unburied,[25] which was released in 2022.

Although Duke worried that backlash from fans about a Black actor playing Wayne would surface, his role was instead met with support and intrigue.