Chadwick Boseman ‘sobbed’ on set after rehearsing emotional scene in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Director describes Boseman’s ‘raw and explosive’ monologue

Chadwick Boseman “sobbed” after performing an emotional scene during his final film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

The beloved Black Panther star died in August, four years after a private colon cancer diagnosis, at the age of 43.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the Netflix film based on August Wilson’s play of the same name, contains Boseman’s final on-screen performance, for which he is tipped to win a posthumous Academy Award.

In an interview with WSJ magazine, director George C Wolfe described Boseman’s reaction to filming one of the film’s key scenes.

The scene in question sees the character of Levee (played by Boseman) attack Cutler (Colman Domingo) for his religious beliefs, culminating in a powerful monologue.

Describing the rehearsal of the scene, Wolfe said: “We were doing it in a very casual way, and I assumed that when Levee got to the big speech that Chadwick was going to stop. But he didn’t stop. He kept going, and Levee took over; it was raw and explosive.

“Afterwards, Chadwick just started to sob, and Colman hugged him, and then Chadwick’s girlfriend basically picked him up.”

Boseman did not disclose his health problems to his co-stars or to the public during the filming of the project.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is currently out in select cinemas, and can be streamed on Netflix from 18 December.