Chadwick Aaron Boseman was an American actor. He began his career with guest appearances on television and was a series regular on the short-lived Lincoln Heights (2008–2009) and Persons Unknown (2010). Boseman’s breakthrough role came as baseball player Jackie Robinson in the biopic 42 (2013). He continued to portray historical figures, starring in Get on Up (2014) as singer James Brown and Marshall (2017) as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Boseman achieved international fame for playing superhero Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) from 2016 to 2019.

He appeared in four MCU films, including an eponymous 2018 film that earned him an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Boseman also headlined the film 21 Bridges (2019) and had a supporting role in Da 5 Bloods (2020). In 2016, Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer. Boseman kept his condition private, continuing to pursue his acting career while receiving treatment. After a four-year battle he died in 2020 from complications related to the illness.

“A superhero movie is only as great as its villains.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Actors can have a fair amount of hate for each other, so when another actor says, ‘You did your thing,’ or ‘That was inspiring,’ you can’t really ask for more than that.” – Chadwick Boseman
“As a director, it is important to understand the actor’s process.” – Chadwick Boseman
“As an African-American actor, a lot of our stories haven’t been told.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Colonialism is the cousin of slavery.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they’re not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.” – Chadwick Boseman
“For me, being a complete artist means not necessarily just being in front of the camera, but being behind the camera or being the originator or creator of something.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Guys are natural problem solvers – they like to have strategies.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I don’t read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I got scars from every film I’ve done, every TV show.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I just think people have been very gracious and welcoming me on set, and even off set.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I know that baseball players have certain rituals or habits that they develop, because sometimes it becomes somewhat superstitious if they get on a streak and want to do the same thing over and over again.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I like ambiguity because you may be the villain in someone else’s story and the hero in your own, and I think very often, African-American characters are either one thing or the other. You shouldn’t have to be perfectly good or perfectly bad. You don’t even have to be magical.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It’s either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there’s always a buzzing beneath you.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I majored in directing. However, I did spend some time at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, so I am somewhat well-versed in African Studies.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I remember my first agent telling me – because they found me as an actor, but I was probably more interested in writing and maybe directing – they were like, ‘Well, you can’t do both things.’ And I was like, ‘I’m gonna show you.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I said yes too much. I said yes to certain projects that weren’t for me. It was somebody else’s vision and somebody else’s dream and somebody else’s artistic endeavour, but it didn’t necessarily fit in my grand scheme.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don’t really say that I’m an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn’t have money to pay my rent.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I think there’s a difference between a working actor, a movie star and a celebrity. They’re all three different things.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I think you realize how much you need to have people that you love. It’s not as much about them loving you – it’s about you needing to love people.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I thought I would draw or paint or be an architect. I was always drawing portraits. My mom put me in art classes in the summer.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I was raised in a sort of village. I have a huge family, and I think there is strength in that. It helped me to deal with some of the complications of living in the South because I always felt like I belonged, no matter what.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I wasn’t a comic book geek as a kid. I read some, but it was just like, ‘Oh, I have this comic book here.’ It wasn’t like I was collecting them.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I watched movies, obviously, just like anybody else, but there was nothing to make me think, ‘I’m going to go to L.A. and become a movie star,’ or anything like that.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I would go through these cycles of being really, really focused on work, and not being around anyone, to being around everyone. And that could be distracting. It was nothing or everything.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.’ People don’t realize that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I’d taken, like, maybe some African dance classes a couple of times, but I wasn’t a musical theater person at all.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I’m an artist. Artists don’t need permission to work. Regardless of whether I’m acting or not, I write. I write when I’m tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I’m from Anderson, S.C., but I grew up in the South. So I know what it is to ride to school and have Confederate flags flying from trucks in front of me and behind me, to see a parking lot full of people with Confederate flags and know what that means. I’ve been stopped by police for no reason.” – Chadwick Boseman
“I’m not afraid to work.” – Chadwick Boseman
“In television, you don’t have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it’s even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Once you start getting big roles as an actor, everything pays. So what are you making decisions on? It’s about the director or the script or whatever. But before you reach that point, you’re taking jobs with, say, a theater company, in spite of the fact that it’s not paying your bills.” – Chadwick Boseman
“One of the first things I was taught as an actor was, ‘Don’t judge the character.’ Chadwick Boseman
“People don’t want to experience change; they just want to wake up, and it’s different.” – Chadwick Boseman
“People have said, ‘You don’t need to do any more biopics. You don’t need to play any more real people.’ I don’t agree with that.” – Chadwick Boseman
“People of African descent, most of us grew up accepting and loving Spider-Man. I still love Spider-Man. I still love the Incredible Hulk. I still have those characters that were white role models, superheroes, heroes – whatever you want to call it. You basically had no choice but to accept those.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Some people would view Jackie Robinson as a very safe African-American, a docile figure who had a tendency to try to get along with everyone, and when you look at his history, you learn that he has this fire that allows him to take this punishment but also figure out savvy ways of giving it back.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Sometimes when you’re acting, you only need a little bit of something to sort of channel or, you know, transport into a place.” – Chadwick Boseman
“Sometimes you need to get knocked down to understand what you fight is.” – Chadwick Boseman
“The best advice about getting older? Just be thankful you’re not dead.” – Chadwick Boseman
“The industry looks for white actors and actresses, but it’s not the same for black actors. We have to really put the work in.” – Chadwick Boseman
“The number one rule of acting is, ‘do not seek approval from the audience’. People don’t realise that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.” – Chadwick Boseman
“The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people.” – Chadwick Boseman
“The thing I love about Marvel in general is that they deal with people. They deal with the human being first: Who is inside the suit? Who is the person that obtained this power or this ability?” – Chadwick Boseman
“There’s nothing more stressful than your stomach growling. But interestingly enough, some of my best writing came when I was poor and hungry – living off water and oatmeal, mind clear.” – Chadwick Boseman
“We live in a world where people can ridicule you at the push of the button. They can question you at the push of a button.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When I got out of school, I didn’t really understand the differences in the different aspects of the business. For example, doing a play – where does that take you versus, you know, concentrating on independent films? You might have one thing in your head, but the things you’re doing don’t really lead down the right road, necessarily.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When it comes down to it, I’d rather have an action figure than a Golden Globe.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When you make movies, it’s such an important period of time, when you look back at each one of them. You want to be able to say that you did something that was a challenge and that changed you.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When you play characters, you shouldn’t just be putting on their characteristics – you should be finding it inside yourself.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When you pray for something, it can actually happen and that is powerful.” – Chadwick Boseman
“When you’re doing a character, you want to know the full landscape. You want to know them spiritually, mentally, and physically.” – Chadwick Boseman
“You have to cherish things in a different way when you know the clock is ticking, you are under pressure.” – Chadwick Boseman
“You might have one thing in your head, but the things you’re doing don’t really lead down the right road, necessarily. When you’re young, you don’t want to hear that. You think you can do everything, be all things.” – Chadwick Boseman
“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 Boseman

Tags: Quotes