The first look at Chadwick Boseman's final film is here

The first look at Chadwick Boseman’s final film has arrived. The late actor, who passed away in August following a four-year battle with colon cancer, has a starring role in the upcoming adaptation of playwright August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. On September 30, Netflix, who won the rights to the film from HBO, shared images from the upcoming historical drama, which stars Boseman opposite Oscar-winner Viola Davis.Set in 1927, the film stars Boseman as an eager trumpet player named Levee who gets the chance to play during the recording session of Ma Rainey’s iconic Mother of the Blues album. Davis plays real-life blues singer Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, who was known as the ‘Mother of Blues.’ The film reunites Davis with her Fences costar and director Denzel Washington. The 2016 film, which earned Davis her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, was also based on one of Wilson’s plays (Washington has been entrusted by the Wilson family to bring all the late playwright’s scripts to the big screen). For the new film, Washington acts as a producer in support of director George C. Wolfe.

 

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Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman star in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a new film based on August Wilson’s award-winning play from director George C. Wolfe and producer Denzel Washington. @MaRaineyFilm premieres December 18.

A post shared by Netflix US (@netflix) on Sep 30, 2020 at 4:17pm PDT

Speaking to The New York Times about working with Boseman, Davis said that his brilliance as an actor and his compassion as a person is now even more inspiring following his death. “I’m looking back at how tired he always seemed,” said Davis. “I look at his beautiful, unbelievable team that was meditating over him and massaging him, and I now realize everything they were trying to infuse in him to keep him going and working at his optimal level. And he received it.”[video_embed id='2025383']RELATED: Marvel pays tribute to Chadwick Boseman with emotional video[/video_embed]Davis said that Boseman’s final role as Levee represents not only someone struggling with their own mortality, but also the struggle of Black people and specifically Black men who are forced to work every day to move beyond the trauma that has been inflicted on them since birth. “Levee represents so many Black men living in America. What we’re constantly navigating on a day-to-day basis is the trauma of our past — we’re trying to heal from it, we’re even trying to understand that it’s there, and we’re negotiating that with our dreams and who we want to become,” said Davis. “Now we know that the role mirrors Chadwick’s life, but if that were omitted, it still mirrors his life in a way. Because it mirrors the life of every Black person grieving, and especially the life of a Black man.”

 

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Chadwick.....no words to express my devastation of losing you. Your talent, your spirit, your heart, your authenticity........It was an honor working beside you, getting to know you....Rest well prince...May flights of angels sing thee to thy heavenly rest. I love you! ??? My heart cannot take 2020! Please God no more!!!

A post shared by VIOLA DAVIS (@violadavis) on Aug 28, 2020 at 8:32pm PDT

Washington also spoke to the Times about Boseman’s undeniable gift as an actor, a craft the Oscar winner famously helped encourage with a private tuition donation to the University of Oxford theatre program while Boseman was a student at Howard University. “He did a brilliant job, and he’s gone,” said Washington. “I still can’t believe it.”In September, Washington appeared in a virtual chat for TIFF as part of the In Conversation With…Barry Levinson and Denzel Washington special. Washington remembered Boseman as “a gentle man. A very, very gentle soul, a great talent, obviously. Thrust in this position.” Acknowledging that he was unaware of Boseman’s condition during the filming of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Washington called Boseman’s death a major loss for movie fans. “Who knew he didn’t have much life left? But he didn’t get cheated. We did. He didn’t get cheated. We did,” said Washington. “I pray for his poor wife and their family. They got cheated. But he lived a full life.”Since Boseman’s passing, friends and co-stars have posted lengthy tributes to the late actor, including his Black Panther director Ryan Coogler and co-stars Michael B. Jordan, Letitia Wright and Lupita Nyong’o.In September, Boseman’s 21 Bridges co-star Sienna Miller revealed that Boseman raised her salary by giving up part of his pay. “That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. He said, ‘You’re getting paid what you deserve, and what you’re worth.’ It’s just unfathomable to imagine another man in that town behaving that graciously or respectfully,” Miller told Empire. “In the aftermath of this I’ve told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very, very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while. But there was no showiness, it was, ‘Of course I’ll get you to that number, because that’s what you should be paid.’”Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was filmed during the summer of 2019 in Pittsburgh and marks the final on-screen role for Boseman, who died on August 28 at age 43. Boseman also starred in this year's Spike Lee Vietnam drama Da 5 Bloods, which was released in June on Netflix.Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will premiere on Netflix on December 18.[video_embed id='2045194']RELATED: Sienna Miller reveals Chadwick Boseman’s generous act[/video_embed]