"You're not free unless you can show the good and the bad, all sides of them. So to me, when I play a character, it's important that I can show every aspect of them."
Chadwick Aaron Boseman (November 29, 1976 – August 28, 2020) was an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and playwright born in Anderson, South Carolina.
After numerous small roles in TV series in the 2000s, he rose to prominence in the mid-to-late 2010s through roles including Jackie Robinson in 42, James Brown in Get On Up and T'Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuting in Captain America: Civil War. For his final performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, he was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
He passed away on August 28, 2020 at the age of 43 due to complications from stage IV colon cancer. He had battled the illness for four years, and it was not publicly revealed until after his death. His death was a massive shock to the entire world, as many fans, as well as his co-workers, grieved his sudden demise.
Selected filmography
Film:
- The Express (2008) as Floyd Little
- 42 (2013) as Jackie Robinson
- Draft Day (2014) as Vontae Mack
- Get On Up (2014) as James Brown
- Gods of Egypt (2016) as Thoth
- Marvel Cinematic Universe (2016 — 2021) as T'Challa/Black Panther:
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Black Panther (2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- What If...? (2021; voice)note
- Message from the King (2016) as Jacob King
- Marshall (2016) as Thurgood Marshall
- 21 Bridges (2019) as Det. Andre Davis
- Da 5 Bloods (2020) as Stormin' Norman
- Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) as Leveenote
Live-Action TV:
- All My Children (2003) as Reggie Porter Montgomery
- Third Watch (2003) as David Wafer
- CSI: NY (2006) as Rondo
- Cold Case (2008) as Dexter "Dex" Collins
- Lie to Me (2009) as Cabe McNeil
- Persons Unknown (2010) as Sergeant McNair
- Fringe (2011) as Cameron James/Mark Little
- Justified (2011) as Ralph "Flex" Beeman
Tropes associated with his work:
- Assumed Win: At the 2021 Academy Awards, it was widely accepted Boseman would become the third man to win a posthumous Oscar. His turn in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom had already earned him the Golden Globe, Critic's Choice Award, and Screen Actors Guild award and most took his Oscar win as a given. That included the Oscar producers who, bucking decades of tradition, scheduled Best Actor as the last award of the evening to close it out with Boseman's widow accepting on his behalf. Instead, in a stunning upset, Anthony Hopkins (who wasn't even in attendance) won for The Father. This led to some backlash against the Oscars over the anticlimactic scheduling; Hopkins himself paid tribute to Boseman in a recorded acceptance speech on social media.
- Determinator: He had a tendency to portray men who had to overcome great obstacles in their life: Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown, and T'Challa. Also a real-life example, as he persevered through his work with a diagnosis of colorectal cancer 4 years prior to his passing.
- In Memoriam:
- A street in Spider-Man: Miles Morales and a Wakandan helicopter in The Avengers (2021) were both named after him.
- The Harder They Fall (2021) had a train car with his name emblazoned on the side of it.
- Current prints of Black Panther, seen on Disney+ since the date of what would have been his 44th birthday, changed the Marvel Studios logo into having Black Panther related images and ending with a purple background.
- Most installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Multiverse Saga, the first Saga released after his passing, ends its' logo sequence with the scene of T'Challa scattering the Border Tribesmen with a kinetic impact as a tribute to him and the impact he left.
- The What If…? (2021) episode, "What If ... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?" is dedicated to him, stating, "Dedicated to Our Friend, Our Inspiration, and Our Hero, Chadwick Boseman".
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever uses the Marvel Studios logo mentioned above, which was also run without the usual fanfare. The end credits dedicate the movie to his memory.
- Method Acting: While working as T'Challa, he never dropped the character's accent, due to worrying that he couldn't keep it consistent otherwise.
- Typecasting: He played a lot of historical figures who were usually pivotal to African-American representation — Jackie Robinson, the first African-American baseball player to play in the major league; James Brown, the first African American musician to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Judge in the Supreme Court of the United States. He also had a lead role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, about one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers to record. And there's of course Black Panther, the first superhero of African origin, and whose solo film was the first one in the MCU with a black lead.
