Actress Phylicia Rashad opened up about her connection with Chadwick Boseman that was made even before stepping in the entertainment industry. The 72-year-old actress revealed the moment when she came across Boseman as a raw talent while she was a professor of acting at Howard University.
In an interview with Kevin Frazier, the actress opened up about her relationship with the Black Panther fame who died on Aug. 28 due to colon cancer. The actor passed away at the age of 43 and the entire industry is still mourning his death.
The actress also recalled how gentle the late actor was and always carried a huge smile. The Cosby Show star revealed that the actor had an immense amount of curiosity to learn new things and kept studying something or the other.
"When I look back on his body of film work, and I have been able to see quite a bit of it in these last few weeks, it never ceases to amaze me how very different he is in each and every role," she recalled. The actress further said that the differences in every role seem very subtle.
The actress noted that Boseman doesn't portray a sweet rolled character. His character playing technique is not contrived or manipulated, instead, he represents a real person in every character he portrayed on-screen.
Rashad didn't only serve as a teacher to Boseman but she also recalled asking her popular friends such as Denzel Washington in order to seek help for the late actor's financial aid for abroad acting school. Boseman soon became a big movie star after graduating from the school as he acted in memorable films such as Black Panther, Get on Up and 42.
The actress acknowledged that she has never spoken about this before but she feels amazed that Boseman's portrayal as James Brown didn't earn an Oscar Award. She explained how difficult it is to go deep inside someone's life and get out of your own personality to adapt to another human completely for the sake of representing that human being on-screen is something deep.
Rashad further said that it might sound superficial to many people but to understand the psychology of the character the actor is playing needs a lot of hard work and what Boseman did was phenomenal.
The actress remembers when the actor arrived in New York following his graduation, he called up and said that he is extremely excited about being in a library. Rashad explained this is the kind of personality he was.