Viola Davis revealed in a recent interview that she had some judgmental thoughts about Chadwick Boseman during their time filming Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Speaking with The Times in an interview published Saturday, the actress looked back on her experience working with Boseman on the movie. The cast wasn’t aware he had colon cancer, and Davis admitted she questioned why Boseman’s girlfriend and makeup artist would rub his back and play meditation music.
“There was a part of me that was a little judgmental—why do you need all that,” Davis said. “Little did I know that they were doing it because he was dying.”
Boseman passed away in August 2020 after fighting colon cancer for years. Throughout his twenty-year career, he earned a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and received an Oscar nomination.
Last year, Lupita Nyong’o shared a tribute on Instagram marking four years since Boseman’s death.
She posted two photos—one solo shot of Boseman and another of them laughing together—with the caption, “‘Grief never ends. But it changes. It is a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It’s the price of love,'” she wrote, quoting an “unknown” author.
Nyong’o added, “Remembering Chadwick Boseman. Forever.”
That same year, Nyong’o discussed how playing a cancer patient in A Quiet Place: Day One made her reflect on Boseman.
“In the end, it was actually very therapeutic because I had just experienced not too many years ago the death of Chadwick Boseman, which shook me to my core,” N’yongo said. “I definitely was thinking about that a lot.”
