Trivia / Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

• Award Category Fraud:
  • Viola Davis was nominated as a leading actress, even though several viewers have argued the role is more supporting, as she's often absent from a large chunk of the film, and Chadwick Boseman receives the brunt of focus throughout. She got top billing, so it is consistent.
  • In an even worse case of this trope, the original production saw Charles S. Dutton nominated for a Tony as a featured actor. Dutton was playing Levee, the main character.
• Billing Displacement: Despite Chadwick Boseman playing the true lead of the film, with noticeably much more screentime and lines than Viola Davis, he shares top billing with her, in the initial credits, and is then billed below her in the final ones. Made even more egregious by the fact that it was his final film and he would go on to receive all the attention from critics, audiences, awards bodies and the media for it, rather than Davis.
• California Doubling: The film is set in 1927 Chicago, but was filmed in Pittsburgh.
• Channel Hop: Was initially in development as an HBO project before eventually moving to Netflix by 2019.
• Dyeing for Your Art: A partial example. To play the heavyset titular singer, Viola Davis gained weight, going up to around 200 pounds, and then used a fat suit to accurately portray Ma Rainey's roughly 300 pound figure.
• Non-Singing Voice: Viola Davis has stressed that she's no singer, and thus another performer's voice was used.
• Posthumous Credit: Chadwick Boseman passed away on August 28, 2020. This is the last film he played in, and it was released four months after his passing.
• Release Date Change: From November 2020 to December 18, 2020.
• What Could Have Been: Jeffrey Wright was initially attached to this project at some point, but had to drop out.

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