Chadwick Boseman

The Director Who Ended Up in the Spotlight

Chadwick Boseman never chased the fame of neon billboards in Los Angeles. At first, his plan was to write and direct plays because he saw storytelling as a political tool. He studied at Howard University, where he met Phylicia Rashad, who saw in him something Boseman himself was not yet ready to show on screen.

Then came the scholarship to the British American Drama Academy in Oxford.

Denzel Washington paid for that summer course out of his own pocket without knowing who that kid from South Carolina was. Boseman made the most of every pound to study the classics, but his return to New York was hard. He worked as an acting teacher at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture while landing minor roles in series such as Third Watch and Law & Order.

In 2013, he played Jackie Robinson in 42 after months of physical and psychological training. Critics noticed his ability to hold the screen without relying on excessive dialogue. But it was his portrayal of James Brown in Get on Up in 2014 that proved he could carry a big-budget production on his shoulders.

Keeping Secrets in Blockbuster Cinema

Marvel didn't ask him to audition.

In 2016, he first appeared as T’Challa in Captain America: Civil War after a direct call from the producers. That same year, he was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer. Boseman decided not to tell Disney or his castmates about his illness so the medical treatment would not interfere with his work.

Between 2016 and 2020, he filmed seven movies while undergoing chemotherapy sessions and constant surgeries. In 2018, the release of Black Panther became a worldwide box office phenomenon that surpassed 1,300 million dollars in ticket sales. During international press tours, no one suspected that the actor was alarmingly losing weight between one hotel and the next.

Silence was his survival strategy.

The gamble paid off, because his physical presence in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame didn't reveal the chronic exhaustion he was suffering from. But the reality on set was different. His closest team included a personal trainer and an assistant who helped him keep the energy needed for the most demanding action scenes.

His Legacy on Netflix

In 2020, he filmed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom under the direction of George C. Wolfe. It was his final performance, and many crew members on set later recalled the almost religious intensity with which he approached the character of Levee. The actor was visibly thinner, but he used that fragility to give a special rage to a trumpet player obsessed with the future.

The film's production cost 20 million dollars and it was shot entirely in Pittsburgh. Boseman received a posthumous Oscar nomination for Best Actor, although the award ultimately went to Anthony Hopkins. The industry recognized his work at the Golden Globes and at the Screen Actors Guild Awards that same year.

Boseman died on August 28, 2020, at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 43.