Reginald Hudlin Remembers Persuading Chadwick Boseman to Play Civil Rights Icon Thurgood Marshall

It takes a great man to play a great man; Chadwick Boseman did it four times!To have the gravity, the intelligence, the physicality to portray any of his signature roles — Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall and T’Challa, the Black Panther — is a breathtaking feat, but to give four entirely different performances is a striking achievement.

Screenwriter Cheo Hodari Coker compared Chadwick to the late great John Cazale, another actor who created an impressive body of work in a very short time before cancer robbed us of him.We met at the Art and Film Ball at Lacma.

Laura Wasserman, a longtime friend, sat us next to each other because she figured we would have a “lot to talk about.” She couldn’t have been more right! Chadwick had just been announced as the star of “Black Panther,” based on a comic book I wrote for four years.

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