Early years and education Boseman His mother, Carolyn, was a nurse. His father, Leroy worked at a textile factory and managed an
upholstery business. In his youth, Boseman practiced
martial arts, and continued this training as an adult. As a child, he wanted to become an architect.
Krio people and
Limba people from
Sierra Leone, and
Yoruba people from
Nigeria. Boseman graduated from
T. L. Hanna High School in 1995, where he played on the basketball team. In his junior year, he wrote his first play,
Crossroads, and staged it at the school after a classmate was shot and killed. He was recruited to play basketball at college but chose the arts instead, attending college at
Howard University in
Washington, D.C., and graduating in 2000 with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts in
directing. His teachers at Howard included
Al Freeman Jr. and
Phylicia Rashad, who became a mentor. After he returned to the U.S., he took additional course work in film studies, graduating from New York City's
Digital Film Academy.
2000–2007: Theater, Deep Azure, and early television Boseman lived in
Brooklyn, New York City, at the start of his career. (Wolfe would later direct Boseman in his final role) and a staging of
Amiri Baraka's
Dutchman. He rose to prominence as a playwright and stage actor in 2002, performing in multiple productions and winning an
AUDELCO award in 2002 for his part in
Ron Milner's
Urban Transitions. as part of the
Hip-hop theater movement; his works included
Rhyme Deferred (co-written with Howard classmate
Kamilah Forbes), in which he also performed, and
Hieroglyphic Graffiti.
Rhyme Deferred was commissioned for a national tour, as well as featuring in
The Fire This Time anthology of works, while
Hieroglyphic Graffiti was produced at a variety of locations, including the
National Black Theatre Festival in 2001. It was also the
Kuntu Repertory Theatre's 2002–03 season launch production. At the 2002 Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, Boseman also gave a one-man show called "Red Clay and Carved Concrete". In 2003, Boseman was cast in his first television role, an episode of
Third Watch, and began playing
Reggie Montgomery in the daytime soap opera
All My Children. He was fired from
All My Children after voicing concerns to producers about racist stereotypes in the script; the role was subsequently re-cast, with Boseman's future
Black Panther co-star
Michael B. Jordan taking the part. his (then-future) agent said that when Boseman was given the second script and learned that his character's parents were a drug addict and an absent father, Boseman confronted the creators. Drama critic
Chris Jones in the
Chicago Tribune highly praised the work. In 2008, Boseman turned
Deep Azure into a screenplay. Michael Greene, who would become his agent, picked it up and contacted Boseman when
Tessa Thompson and
Omari Hardwick expressed an interest in playing the lead roles, prompting Boseman's move to
Los Angeles. He also directed, wrote, and produced the short film
Blood Over a Broken Pawn in 2007, which was honored at the 2008
Hollywood Black Film Festival.
2008–2015: Breakthrough with 42 and Get on Up In 2008, Boseman moved to Los Angeles to pursue his film and acting career. He also appeared in his first feature film in 2008,
The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, as
running back Floyd Little. The show received mediocre reviews that felt the characters were all archetypes with little development. In July 2013, Boseman's second short film as director,
Heaven, premiered at the
HollyShorts Film Festival. in the biopic
42 in the
State Dining Room, April 2013. Boseman's breakthrough role came in 2013 with the film
42, in which he portrayed the lead role of baseball legend
Jackie Robinson. Boseman had been directing an
off-Broadway play in the
East Village when he auditioned for the role, Part of the audition process involved playing baseball; Boseman had been involved with
Little League as a child but was primarily a basketball player growing up, saying that in this part the casting directors likely noticed his athleticism rather than specifically baseball skills. To replicate Robinson's mannerisms, Boseman trained for five months with professional baseball coaches who "would tape [his] practices every few weeks, and they would basically split-screen [his technique] with [Robinson's]" to allow him to compare. Upon taking the role, Boseman first spoke with Rachel Robinson, which he said was of great help in discovering the character. and Mary Pols for
Time said that "Boseman is not a hugely close physical match to Robinson, except for perhaps in the power he conveys, but he's a great choice to play the ball player".
The Guardian Mike McCahill noted that "Boseman hits his key scenes out of the park", but felt the film would not interest people who are not baseball fans, with
Dana Stevens of
Slate suggesting that the film made black history "squeaky-clean" and did both Robinson and Boseman's performance as him a disservice. In 2014, Boseman starred in another sporting film,
Draft Day, as fictional football player Vontae Mack. He had workshopped the
Tupac Shakur jukebox musical Holler If Ya Hear Me in 2013, but did not continue to
Broadway with it in order to take the role of
James Brown in 2014's
Get on Up. working with choreographer Aakomon Jones for five to eight hours a day over two months in preparation. Producer
Mick Jagger also directed him on interacting with audiences when performing live music. but was sought out as director
Tate Taylor's only choice. Among the critics was
Time Richard Corliss (hyperbolically) Eulogizing Boseman,
Donald Clarke of
The Irish Times said that "
Get on Up tested every weapon in the actor's arsenal [and his] performance confirmed that, like a star from
Hollywood's golden age, Chadwick Boseman could do it all and do it all with style." Boseman had sold a
thriller screenplay to
Universal Pictures in 2014, which he continued to collaborate on with creative partner Logan Coles and planned to star in, and told
The Guardian that he still wanted to be a director but would explore his acting career first, adding that "maybe it'll be easier if you're a successful actor". In 2016, he starred as
Thoth, a deity from
Egyptian mythology, in
Gods of Egypt. It was his first largely
CGI film, and he expressed that he preferred acting alongside people than with
blue screens and prop stand-ins. with
Will Leitch of
The New Republic saying that his then-upcoming
Marvel Studios role may have to work "to make you forget he was ever in this movie". Perri Nemiroff for
Collider said that Boseman shines as "the only cast member who really seems to understand the movie he's in".
2016–2019: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marshall and 21 Bridges at the 2017
San Diego Comic-Con In 2016, Boseman began portraying the
Marvel Comics character
T'Challa / Black Panther in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Captain America: Civil War was his first film in a five-picture deal with
Marvel Entertainment. While working on
Civil War, Boseman learned some
Xhosa from
John Kani, who played
his father, and insisted on using the language for the character. When asked by journalist Ryan Gilbey if he felt pressure not to "screw up" the beloved comics character, Boseman responded by saying: "It's more positive than that. It's more like: 'Seize it. Enjoy it. He told the
Associated Press, though, that he more identified with the Black Panther's nemesis,
Killmonger, knowing that his roots to his African past had been severed. Boseman's performance in
Civil War was highly praised, though critics acknowledged the character's inclusion was largely to set up his upcoming headlining movie. Boseman returned as the Black Panther in
Black Panther (2018), which focused on the character and his home country of Wakanda in Africa. The film opened to great anticipation, becoming one of the
highest-grossing films. The role earned Boseman a spot on the 2018
Time 100 as one of the world's most influential people, with
Sean Combs writing his entry. It is seen as a landmark in being the first mega-budget movie to have a predominantly black cast and director, as well as the first
superhero film to be nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Picture. The film received universal acclaim and Boseman was praised; Matthew Norman for the
Evening Standard said that he "brings a measure of sub-Shakespearean gravitas to T'Challa's struggle to bear the weight of his crown";
Richard Lawson and
Sight & Sound Kelli Weston also noted the strength of gravitas Boseman gave to the performance.
Todd McCarthy and
The Village Voice Kristen Yoonsoo Kim saw that while Boseman played his serious character well, the cast was full of charismatic scene stealers.
Peter Travers gave much praise to Boseman as the lead, and said that he "digs so deep into T'Challa that you can feel his nerve endings"; LaSalle wrote that "Boseman commands every moment of this film, radiating probity and purpose, and it's only later on that you realize that, with another actor, this wouldn't have been a sure thing." He reprised the role in both
Avengers: Infinity War and
Avengers: Endgame, which were released in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Both films were the highest grossing of the year they were released, with
Endgame going on to become the highest-grossing film of all time.
Infinity War was filmed at the same time as
Black Panther, and Boseman and other actors playing Wakandan characters improvised chanting scenes in the former that originated in the latter. Boseman's last physical appearance as Black Panther was in
Endgame, at Tony Stark's funeral; Boseman portrayed
Thurgood Marshall in the biographical film
Marshall in 2017. Set years before he became the first African American
Supreme Court Justice, the movie focuses on one of Marshall's early cases, the
trial of Joseph Spell. It was premiered at Howard University, which both Boseman and Marshall had attended. Boseman was still worried about being put into a "biopic box", and felt that he didn't look enough like the real Marshall, but took the role because he enjoyed the script "separate from the historical relevance"; Boseman researched Marshall extensively before portraying him, as well as studying videos of him speaking and losing muscle to reflect the younger Marshall's wiry frame. The film opened to an average critical reception, though Boseman's performance was praised. However,
Vulture criticized his casting, noting that, unlike Boseman, "the real-life Marshall was a light-skinned man, and his place on the color spectrum undoubtedly influenced how he became such a legend." Boseman had been concerned about their differences before taking the role, but was convinced by the director and producer that as the film was telling an insular story it did not matter as much. In 2019, he starred in
21 Bridges, an American action thriller film directed by
Brian Kirk, as an
NYPD detective who shuts down the eponymous twenty-one bridges of
Manhattan to find two suspected cop killers. He was approached to work on the film by two of its producers,
Avengers directors the
Russo brothers, at the
Infinity War premiere. Boseman was also a producer on
21 Bridges, something he said was made clear to him in his early conversations with the production team; All of the film's characters were originally conceived as male and white, with Boseman encouraging amendments to this and other parts of the story. In his capacity as a producer, Boseman sought out
Sienna Miller to be his co-star; Miller, who was intending to take a break from acting while her daughter was young, asked for a salary that the studio would not meet, and so Boseman donated the rest from his own pay. He also personally called
Stephan James to ask him to play one of the criminals Boseman's detective is hunting; the two actors had been planning to work more together after the film. which he said influenced the writing after he fed back his experiences, and learning how to fire blanks and handle a gun with a police weapons specialist. While the film received mixed reviews, the cast was praised; Clarisse Loughrey of
The Independent wrote that the film was indelicate in its storytelling, but that Boseman "finds a surprising amount to work with in such a basic, stock character", while the
Los Angeles Times said that "Chadwick Boseman and thin characters cannot keep
21 Bridges from collapsing".
Glenn Kenny of
RogerEbert.com was more positive towards the film, writing that "it's no small feat to tie up an intelligent action thriller with such assuredness" and that "Boseman [...] does a lot of running and driving and gun-pointing and car-hood slamming here, but his character also does a lot of thinkingand a lot of maneuvering."
2020: Da 5 Bloods and ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' In 2019, Boseman was announced as part of the cast for the
Netflix films
Da 5 Bloods, directed by
Spike Lee, and ''
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, directed by George C. Wolfe. He took these "bucket-list roles" for opportunities to work with Lee and with Ma Rainey
producer Denzel Washington, as well as the opportunity to perform in an August Wilson play, telling Entertainment Weekly'' that he wanted to make these non-superhero films because "if you don't do the films that you plan to do, I think you wouldn't feel fulfilled as an artist."
Time included Boseman on their list of the 10 Best Movie Performances of 2020, for both
Da 5 Bloods and
Ma Rainey for
Ma Rainey, Boseman received posthumous nominations in the Best Actor category at the
Academy Awards,
Actor Awards,
British Academy Film Awards, and
Golden Globe Awards , becoming the eighth person (and seventh man) to receive a posthumous Academy Award acting nomination.
Da 5 Bloods was released on June 12, 2020. Lee, in choosing Boseman for the divine-like character of Stormin' Norman, said: "This character is heroic; he's a superhero. Who do we cast? We cast Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and we cast T'Challa." Reception of his character was mostly positive; for the Associated Press, Jocelyn Noveck wrote that Boseman played Norman "with movie-star charisma and classic war-movie grit", and
Empires Kambole Campbell said his performance had "regal charisma", while Chuck Bowen of
Slant said that he "has a hauntingly gaunt presence, but he's already played too many saints."
The A.V. Clubs Ashley Ray-Harris felt the lack of digital de-aging for the other characters was unsuccessful in its aims and that "Lee's script doesn't give Boseman much to do outside of this confused, Christ-like characterization and never exposes Norman's own naïveté." Conversely,
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian saw it as a reflection that "[he] has grown not old as those that are left grew old", and a way to show how Norman has been romanticized in his comrades' memories; Odie Henderson of
RogerEbert.com had a similar view and said that Boseman was "a perfect casting move", with the actor already carrying such a mythical status in black culture that he does not need to do much to be a believable mythical black icon as Norman. The film ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'', in which Boseman co-stars as trumpeter Levee, was released after the actor's death in 2020.
A. O. Scott of
The New York Times similarly opined that "it will be hard, from now on, to imagine [...] a Levee to compare with Boseman."
Angelica Jade Bastién for
Vulture wrote at length on Boseman's performance, saying that "many of the important turns in the film hinge on Boseman's presence at the center. [...] In the first of his lachrymose monologues, Boseman is called to embody [anger and] gives the scene his all." Charlotte O'Sullivan of the
Evening Standard said Boseman was brave to take on a "more curdled" role than the heroic leaders he is best known for, and that "as skilful as he was talented, [he] hits the right notes, all the time." Clarisse Loughrey wrote that it was the actor's finest performance, that "when [he] rages against an unjust God [...] it strikes like thunder" and is "delivered with such grace that there's a sense he had another hundred performances like it still in him." In 2022, Boseman posthumously won the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for the
What If...? episode "
What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?" at the
74th Primetime Emmy Awards. ==Personal life==