"Black Panther" director mourns Boseman: He is a grand fireworks display

Recently, Chadwick Boseman, the actor of the movie "Black Panther", died of colon cancer at the age of 43. Ryan Coogler, the director of "Black Panther", wrote an article to mourn the death of Boseman, saying that he "was a grand firework, leaving us with a beautiful mark."

The full text is as follows:

I took the casting of T'Challa from Marvel and the Russo brothers, and I'll always be grateful. I first saw Chad (Boseman) play T'Challa in an unfinished version of Captain America: Civil War, when I was deciding whether or not to direct Black Panther, and whether it was the right choice for me.

I'll never forget sitting in the editing room at Disney watching his scenes, his first with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and then with South African film star John Kani as King T'Chaka, T'Challa's father. At that moment, I knew I wanted to make this movie - when Scarlett's character left them, Chad and John began to speak in a language that I had never heard before, but it felt familiar, full of the clicks and smacks that black children in the United States use when they speak, the kind of clicks that we usually think of as disrespectful or inappropriate when we say them. But there was a musicality to the language that felt ancient, powerful, and very African.

At the meeting after seeing the film, I asked Nate Moore, one of the producers of the film, "Is that a language you made up?" Nate replied, "It's Xhosa, John Carney's native language, and he and Chad decided on set that they wanted to shoot the scene that way, and we shot it that way." I thought, "He just learned to speak his lines in another language that day?" I couldn't imagine how difficult that must be, and even before meeting Chad, I was in awe of his savvy as an actor.

I later learned that there was a lot of discussion about how T’Challa would speak in the film. It was Chad, a native of South Carolina, who solidified the decision that Wakanda’s official language would be Xhosa, since he was able to learn to speak in Xhosa on the spot, and he also advocated for his character to speak with an African accent so that he could present T’Challa as an African king, since the language of Wakanda had not been appropriated by the West (Wakanda was not colonized).

I finally met Chad in person in early 2016 after signing on for Black Panther. He dodged the throng of reporters at a Creed press junket I was attending and met me in the green room. We talked about our lives, me playing college football and him studying directing at Howard, our shared vision for T’Challa and Wakanda, the strange coincidence that his former Howard classmate Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing T’Challa’s story for Marvel at the time, and Chad’s knowledge that the murder of Howard student Prince Jones by police had inspired Coates to write his memoir, Between The World and Me.

At that time, I noticed that Chad was an outlier. He was calm, confident, and constantly learning, but also friendly and soothing. He had the warmest laugh in the world and eyes that knew more than his age, but also sparkled like a child seeing something new.

That was the first of many conversations we had, and he's a special guy, and we talked a lot about heritage, about what it means to be African American. In preparing this film, he considered every decision, every choice, not just how they would reflect him, but how they would have a broader impact.

"We want to do what they're not ready for..." "This is our Star Wars, our Lord of the Rings, only bigger." - He would say this to me as we struggled to finish a scene, in double overtime, as he was painted all over, filming his own action scenes, as he slammed into icy water or onto a landing pad. I would nod and smile, but I didn't believe him. I didn't know if the movie would work, I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing, but looking back now, I realize that Chad knew something that none of us did, and his eyes were not on the present but on the long term. At the same time, he was working hard for it.

He also auditioned for supporting actors, which is unusual for leading actors in blockbuster films. He was present for several of M'Baku's auditions, and when Winston Duke auditioned, he turned a script reading to test their chemistry into a wrestling match, and Winston broke his bracelet. When Letitia Wright auditioned for Shuri, she used her signature humor to penetrate his kingly composure and put a 100% Chad smile on T'Challa's face.

During the filming of the movie, we would meet in the office or in the house I rented in Atlanta to discuss the lines and different ways to add depth to each scene, the costumes, the military exercises. He said to me, "The Wakandans have to dance during the coronation of the king. If they stand there with spears, how is that different from the ancient Romans?"

In an early script for the film, the character of Erik Killmonger would ask T'Challa to bury him in Wakanda, which Chad questioned, asking: What if Killmonger asked to be buried somewhere else?

Chad was very private, and I didn't know the details of his illness. After his family released the statement, I realized that he had been ill the entire time I knew him. Because he was a caregiver, a leader, a person with conviction, dignity and pride, he didn't want his collaborators to be hurt by his pain.

He lived a beautiful life and created great art. Day after day, year after year, he was just that. He was a great firework. I will tell stories about those wonderful fireworks throughout my life, and he left us a beautiful mark.

This is the most painful loss I have ever experienced, and I have spent the past year preparing, imagining, and writing the words I wanted him to say that are now doomed to never come true (Coogler is working on the script for Black Panther 2). It breaks my heart to realize that I will never see his close-up on a monitor screen again, or walk up to him and ask for another take.

It’s even sadder that we can no longer talk in person, via video or text. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he would send me and my family vegan recipes or healthy eating tips, and he would check in on me and my loved ones even though he was suffering from cancer himself.

In African culture, we often refer to our loved ones who have passed away as “ancestors,” sometimes with a blood connection and sometimes without. I had the privilege of directing some of Chad’s scenes with his character, T’Challa, as he communicates with the ancestors of Wakanda. It was shot in an abandoned warehouse in Atlanta in front of a blue screen and huge movie lights, but Chad made it feel real. I think it was because the ancestors were speaking to us through him from the moment I met him.

It is no secret to me that he was able to play some of the most important characters (Boseman has starred in many biopics), and I have no doubt that he will always be there and bless us more. However, it is with a heavy heart and deep gratitude for having known him that I must face the fact that Chad is "dead", and I know that he will continue to watch over us until we meet again.