Actor Spotlight: Chadwick Boseman
Three performances that showcase what made the actor so special
If you missed the Academy Awards last weekend (and by the show’s all-time low ratings, many of you did), they ended on a true shocker when Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor over the presumed winner Chadwick Boseman, nominated posthumously after his tragic passing to colon cancer in August of last year. Unfortunately, Hopkins wasn’t present at the ceremony so what could’ve ended as an emotional tribute to Boseman’s legacy instead finished awkwardly with a picture of an actor before the show’s close.
We are big fans of Anthony Hopkins here at DYLA (check out our episode on him!), so no shade to him, but it felt necessary to do an episode on Chadwick Boseman after the Academy’s fumble. We wrote about some of Boseman’s most famous roles and where to watch them in honor of the man.
Thank you to everyone that participated in our DYLA Oscars Prediction Contest last weekend! We had a three-way tie for first place. Taylor Blake, Babak Jamali, and Geraldine all got 6 of the 8 categories correct. The average score was 4.7. Congrats to the winners!
Billy recommends…
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (streaming on Netflix)
Chadwick Boseman is an actor audiences feel like they understand, but once they pull back it is apparent that this may be one of the best actors American cinema has ever produced. How fitting is it that an August Wilson play adaptation allows him to showcase his talent. Wilson created many plays throughout the 80s and each adaptation since has been a vehicle for our best actors to give some of their most impassioned performances.
We had Denzel Washington and Viola Davis adapt the Wilson play Fences in 2016, which was recognized at the 2017 Oscars. Viola Davis rightfully won best supporting actress, Denzel was nominated for best actor, and the movie was nominated for best picture. Fast forward to 2021 where Viola Davis carries her talents to the next Wilson adaptation and uses her clout to usher in the next “what-shoulda-been” Denzel in Chadwick Boseman.
My efforts here are not to convince you that Chadwick should have won the Oscar for best actor this year, but rather that he should be immortalized as Hollywood royalty. Look at this movie to see why that is the case. Since it is a play adaptation there are two scenes in particular that require a large amount of memorization from him and a long look at Boseman’s talent. In an effort to rectify the surprise of this year's Oscars (seriously, this was one of the craziest Oscar moments of all time when he lost) we want to show you all how unique Boseman was, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the perfect archetype to show his talents in the most obvious ways. Expressive acting and vivacious monologues give every vehicle necessary for him to shine and he hits every mark perfectly. In 50 years we'll look back on this era of actors and Chadwick may be at the top of the list. Until that moment let's embrace his talents now and visit the movies that make him great.
Drew recommends…
Black Panther (streaming on Disney Plus)
Does it get much bigger than starring as the titular character in a movie that makes over $1.3 billion worldwide? When Chadwick Boseman was cast as the Black Panther in 2014 (almost four years before this movie came out), he didn’t have a long track record of star performances. He had been Jackie Robinson in 42 and James Brown in Get on Up, as well as a supporting part in Draft Day, but that was about it. When he first appeared as T’Challa (soon to be Black Panther) in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman was far from a household name. Just a couple years later he would be one of our biggest movie stars.
There were many reasons for Black Panther’s massive success in 2018. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was the dominant force in movie culture by this point, it was the first MCU movie to showcase a Black superhero, and it was directed by the talented Ryan Coogler with a cast of scene-stealers, including Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, and more. However, everything centered around Chadwick Boseman. The Black Panther had to be embodied by an actor with enough skill, grace, and strength where it was believable that they could lead Wakanda and join the Avengers. Boseman checked those boxes easily. While other characters like Jordan’s compelling villain Killmonger got the showier parts, it’s Boseman that grounds the movie.
While it’s crushing that we won’t get to see Boseman play the part in Black Panther II, his legacy is secure as a culturally significant figure. How many millions of kids want to dress up like Black Panther after Boseman took up the mantle? Even if you aren’t a comic book movie fan, it doesn’t get much bigger than what Boseman will be remembered for.
Da 5 Bloods (streaming on Netflix)
Even when Chadwick Boseman wasn’t portraying legends like Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and the Black Panther, he always had an easy, natural charisma on screen. It just made sense that other characters would want to follow his lead. Spike Lee picked up on this idea for his (tremendous) 2020 film Da 5 Bloods when he cast Boseman as “Stormin’” Norman, the leader of a squad of Black U.S. Army soldiers in Vietnam. Norman is seen entirely in flashback because he was killed in action. He’s just a memory to the four Vietnam vets, known as the “Bloods,” that travel back to Vietnam decades after the war to locate Norman’s body and the gold bars they found and buried all those years ago.
Boseman makes up for Norman’s lack of screen time by convincing us of the character’s myth. Norman was more than just a military leader for these guys -- he was an intellectual and political leader as well, setting an example for the Bloods during the tumultuous late 1960s, including a pivotal scene where Norman navigates the group’s grief and anger following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Despite having been diagnosed with colon cancer years before, Boseman had the gravitas and stature to pull off such an impressive figure. Since Boseman had already played Black heroes in sports, music, and comic books, his turn as “Stormin’” Norman, a legend to the film’s main characters, was all the more believable.
Links
Nomadland filmmaker Chloe Zhao became only the second woman to win Best Director at the Oscars last weekend. This week she talked to Variety about Nomadland’s Oscar wins and her upcoming Marvel movie Eternals.
How exactly did Anthony Hopkins upset in the Best Actor category last Sunday night? Here’s a few reasons why it happened.