Chadwick Boseman ‘started to sob’ during a key scene in his last film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

His tragic death shocked fans and industry players alike this past August.

And now the cast and crew members of Chadwick Boseman’s final film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, are sharing further details about what it was like to work with him in his last role.

The Netflix film’s director George C Wolfe, along with costars Viola Davis and Colman Domingo, spoke to WSJ Magazine about Boseman‘s ‘raw and explosive’ final performance.

For Wolfe, one scene in particular stood out went reminiscing on what it was like to work with Chadwick.

‘We were doing it in a very casual way, and I assumed that when [Boseman’s character] 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,’ the filmmaker recalled. 

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

Boseman and his then-girlfriend, Taylor Simone Ledward, eventually got married before his untimely death. 

Another moment on set also holds meaning for the director now, in retrospect.

At one point, Boseman was prepping for a scene in which Levee reveals a scar on his chest – something the character bears from his traumatic childhood. 

‘He talked to me about having a secret, and how intense it is to reveal a secret to someone else, how vulnerable that makes you feel,’ Wolfe said. 

Domingo, who plays fellow band member Cutler in the film, was also able to sense that Boseman was preoccupied on set. 

The late Black Panther star was dealing with stage IV colon cancer for a number of years before his death this year at age 43, but preferred to keep his illness private.

‘I could tell with Chad sometimes, he had something on his mind. He’d walk into a room and he wouldn’t speak to anyone,’ Colman observed. 

After he playfully chided the star actor, Boseman grinned and began to make a point of shaking Domingo’s hand and hugging every day thereafter. 

For her part, Oscar-winning actress Davis also noticed Chadwick‘s solitary demeanor on set.

‘Everything that was in his soul, he poured into his drumming,’ she said, referencing Boseman’s habit of retreating to his trailer in between takes to play his djembe, a West African hand drum.

‘He said he needed it. It was healing for him.’

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom tells the tale of the real life ‘Mother of the Blues’ and is set in Chicago in 1927.

Viola portrays Rainey, while Chadwick plays her hotheaded trumpet player Levee. 

The film is based on Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s 1982 play. 

The movie is set to premiere on Netflix on December 18th.