In anticipation of the November 11 release of the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, ABC Audio is doing a deep dive into the lore of the Marvel favorite — and here, the man who played him, Chadwick Boseman.
The Oscar nominee died in 2020 at the age of 43, following a years-long, private battle with colon cancer.
After Boseman’s passing, some of his Marvel movie co-stars appeared on a special ABC tribute in his honor. Robert Downey Jr., who played Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, noted, “Always, always humble, always working, always a smile on his face. And then now, looking back, all the more I realized just what an incredibly graceful human being he was.”
Speaking to Whoopi Goldberg, his widow, Simone Ledward Boseman, recalled how his health took a turn for the worse during the pandemic — but it made it easier to hide his condition from the public.
“It was COVID when things were really starting to spiral. And that meant that everybody was in their house and there was no pressure for anybody to go outside.” She added, “It seemed like, ‘Is this a crazy coincidence that we get to actually be inside?’ We get to be here with family, with, you know, together. And everybody in the world is also experiencing this togetherness in the midst of this awful, scary, unpredictable time. We kept that circle real [small] — the circle was basically a dot.”
The interview, part of ABC’s recent Black Panther: In Search of Wakanda, also saw Simone talking about her grief in losing the actor. “Some days I’m doing worse than I’m really willing to acknowledge, and other days I’m doing better than I feel comfortable admitting,” she expressed.
Simone explained, “I can’t believe that I was so lucky. I can’t believe that I got to love this person. And I also got them to love me, too.”
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