Happy Sad Confused - Chadwick Boseman (2017)

Episode Date: August 29, 2020

We've lost a great talent and a greater man in Chadwick Boseman. In memory of Chadwick, this is his conversation with Josh in 2017 about his life and career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Josh. As you know by now, we have lost an exceptionally talented and hugely influential human being in the last day. Chadwick Boseman passed away at the age of 43. He had been silently, at least publicly, dealing with cancer the last few years, even as he made. some of the most resonant films in recent memory and indelible performances. This is a loss that has hit everybody, I feel like, tremendously hard. These are hard times.

This has been a shitty year. And this is, in a crappy year, this is one of the worst things that we've had to deal with. because Chadwick Boseman was in his prime, he was just getting started, and he was not only a fantastic actor, but a good man. Truly, a guy that had his priorities right and wanted to contribute and was in it for the right reasons and was delivering just great work after great work, and no one can say that there wasn't going to be decades more of exceptional work to come. Yeah, this loss really hit me hard as it's hit many people hard,

and I felt compelled to go back this morning. I listened to my conversation with Chadwick back in late 2017. He came into my office. He was promoting Marshall, the biopic where he played Third Good Marshall, and we had a chat, and I hadn't listened to it since then, and it hit me, again, really hard as very sad, but also really inspiring. Chadwick was just like a very intelligent, inspiring figure. I don't know how else to put it. His trajectory in becoming an actor and becoming a ginormous movie star was unusual. He became a movie star in his, basically, in his mid-30s, with virtually no film roles prior. He'd been living a life as a teacher

and a bit player, an actor, in TV, and in theater. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be a director. He wanted to be part of the creative process, but didn't necessarily think he wanted to be the guy in front. And at a certain point, circumstances. changed and he became that guy and he it's shocking to think how close we came to not even having him as an actor and a movie star that you know if things had gone a different way he could have lived a relatively anonymous life in the theater and as a teacher and that would have been a life well lived but the fact that he you know delivered on such a big stage um is to all our benefit And, you know, I can't, I'm not going to pretend that Chadwick was like a close friend, but he was an acquaintance.

He was somebody that I got to know a fair amount in recent years. And he just had an amazing combination of humility and power, if that makes any sense. He knew he was talented, but he also knew there was a weight on his shoulders. and he knew that it was an opportunity that he had to make the most of, and he did. He was writing, he was producing, he was starring as these seminal influential figures and doing them justice time and time again. So I don't know what else to say, except I wanted to share this conversation because it is inspiring, I think, to hear his words and to hear how vibrant he was

and here just what a good guy he was and what a smart guy he was and what a talented man he was and I'm so sorry for this loss for all of us and especially to his family and I hope this is some kind of small snapshot and tribute to Chadwick because he always treated me very decently and was very kind and sweet with me and I really really enjoyed our time together. and I will, I'll miss him on a personal level and I'll miss him on a professional level. So, this is my conversation with Chadwick Boseman from 2017. Rest in peace, Chadwick Boseman. Let's do it.

Human conversation, as if we're two normal human beings. All we can do it is as dogs Welcome to the only official dog podcast That's Chadwick Tosman's What do you do? Which dog is that? This is a, that was a great day

And I switched dogs It's been a long test store clearly You've lost it They're singing, they're dog noises All right, let's go, let's go It's good to see, man We've never really talked at length So this is a treat for me

I've been a big fan of your work for a while and congratulations on this latest one, man. Marshall's the film we're going to talk about. Thank you so much, man. We have some time to talk about a lot of things. So one thing I want to get started with, if that's cool, is talk about New York, because I didn't realize you had, like, a history here, like, you were here for a bit.

Yeah, New York always feels, I mean, I'm still, it's still home. I still have family here, my brother lives here, cousins here, got children here. Like, yeah, it's, some of my greatest teachers are here. So, yeah, New York is definitely a home for me. It's funny because I found, like, a surprising point of connection that we have in that, like, my mom runs, like, a nonprofit theater organization here in New York and works a lot with the Schaumburg. And I didn't realize that you did some teaching there for a number of years. I taught some students at DeSchenberg, yeah, for a number of years, taught theater, taught, really it was like, you know, African kind of studies.

During a program that they have on a weekend, sometimes they meet. every once in a while they do stuff during the week, but most of this weekend. So where were you at in your life when you came to New York? Give me a sense of sort of like where that fit into the child of a postman story. Oh, I, you know, I was a struggling artist. You know, I, the best way to put it is, you know, I was doing everything I could artistically to sort of stay in it, including music stuff. Like we, you know, it was, I was doing hip-hop theater, you know, which is,

basically we would take the, you know, the elements of hip hop and put it in a story. So the dialogue would sometimes be rhyming or, you know, I wrote one script. It was almost like you're looking at Shakespeare, but it's hip hop slang. Right. And is that partially to make it, like, accessible for different audiences? No, it was just the culture we were living in. I think we, you know, we started doing it in D.C. when I was at Howard. and it just became a method of expression.

It was like an offshoot of the underground hip-hop, you know, underground hip-hop movement and the performance poetry movement slash the dance because we had B-boys, we had DJs with like the orchestra. It was a whole... So just like using the vernacular of the time, the way we conversed and applying that to some classical music too. Yeah, it wasn't like, let's make this cool for the kids.

It was just, that was the way we told stories. and the hip hop theater festival existed I guess it still exists I haven't seen it in a couple of years but it existed in New York for years various different types of performance different ways of doing hip hop theater and so now you see Hamilton

that is like the ultimate extension the commercial version of what we were doing but you know Hamilton you're like yeah been there done that pretty much pretty much pretty much but no it's not not to take anything away from it But it is literally, like, we were doing that way before. So, you know, so I was doing a little bit of everything.

I was doing Shakespeare. I was directing. I was writing. I was doing every little reading to anybody had. So I just wanted to be in the mix and be an artist, you know. Were you making a living? Like, were you able to, like, kind of get by? Well, I was to some degree, but I also was teaching at the Schaumburg.

You know, everybody knows what that, like, teaching artist thing was. But yeah, it was a gradual thing. I think you, when you walk that road and you're truly, you know, I'll have a lot of people that will tell me they want to be actors. And they're in L.A. or they're in, you know, Atlanta, you know, and they're like, you know, how do you do it? Like, you know, and they have no idea, you know, because they think it's all about showing up in front of the camera.

Right. they have no idea how many rooms I sat in with other performers, not just act as performers, and we just wanted to create, you know, we weren't even thinking about what we're going to get paid. That was an afterthought. And so I tell people it's just like, you have to love what you do first. And, and, you know, all the other stuff will come. I'm not saying, don't be business-minded, but, you know, I can always tell whether somebody really loves it or they just, they just want the outcome were you and did you have besides stuff like teaching at the seanberg did you have like kind of like do you have to wait tables did you have to do any of that

kind of stuff i never i never did acting gigs yeah i never i just did enough stuff that was that yeah well it was it was like it was like i i want to stay in the midst of this if i'm teaching it i'm learning if i if i'm everything fed into what you yeah if i if i'm doing voiceovers i did a lot a voiceovers. I didn't really, I didn't do on-camera commercials because I was like, I don't really want to, I don't know if that's my, you know, there's a sort of an elitist feeling. I don't want to do on-camera commercials. I just want to be like that

Robert De Niro type actor, you know. I don't want to be the seventh lead on Gossip Girl. Yeah, so, but I did voiceovers a lot, you know. I did, and that pay, actually that actually got me through. Yeah, first is do. Foursovers do pay, don't it. Pay. You like, what? thank you what kind of voiceovers

thank you thank you what's the best good fast food lots of fast food any particular lines come to mine I don't remember the line you flush those out I don't remember yeah

I flushed those out of my system so I mean that's a good word for it so I mean it is fascinating because that's kind of like the big picture thing that that really struck me when I was reading up on you that people don't realize I even did a

an audio book. I did an audio book that got nominated for a Grammy. Nice. Do you get the nomination or are you? I can't remember. Upstate. That was the name of it. Upstate. Yeah. I forgot the name of that thing. I feel like your whole team was like, really? Yeah. I forgot about that. So it was good too. I'm sure. But it's interesting because yeah, for those that don't like look at your full body of work and kind of like look at the timeline, you know, you have a very atypical trajectory for an actor. Like as you well know, it's like, like in this like kind of youth obsessed culture where it's like me the 22 year old and he's going to be the next big star it took you a bit to kind of like make the leap yeah and i didn't want

it that was the thing about it it was like i truth i truthfully was more interested at one point in time i think in writing and and um you know i was you know reading books i didn't i didn't necessarily want it i didn't i didn't want that i was like kind of crazy like so what was that about you were saying like kind of like I mean did you feel like you were better than not in a negative way I'm not trying to like make you sound like holier than now but like were you just not into kind of sort of like the opportunities that were presenting themselves or it was I think that you can be it's weird to say this but you can you can not define you know I'm not saying that it was a good thing at all but you can exist in a place where

you have a certain amount of you have a certain amount of success amongst your peers you have a certain amount of success amongst artists around you and you view them as being as good as anybody that you see on TV. Right.

Even if they're not famous. Even if they're not famous. Yeah, I'm like, you know, I did anybody to mess with anybody from my clan. You know what I'm saying? That's how you... Put them up against anybody, right? That's how you feel. And so, you know, it's a thing of, I remember there was a producer, Woody King, Jr., who I love, who is over a new federal theater, off Broadway theater. And he kept telling me, man, you got to go out to L.A., man.

He was pushing me to go out to the idea when it's plays. He said, we're going to do the play out. And I was like, nah, I don't, you know, it's Hollywood. I don't feel like. So I had this sort of misconception about what Hollywood, what Hollywood. was. And then I also had another point when I did want to go a set of agents

who I think really didn't believe in me. And they kept saying, you're going to go out there, you're going to get swallowed up. So they produced this sort of fear of what it was. And I think sometimes you can be in New York or Chicago because Chicago is also a really good hub where you can do theater. Amazing theater time. And

there's quite a bit of TV and film there too. But you can be in a a certain hub and have, you know, a success or following and people know who you are. Cast and directors know who you are. But if you don't go out to L.A., you know, and you get the whole scope of the thing, then you don't understand what you're actually missing. And there's also kind of like, if you never go out to L.A. and go for it, you can kind

of always be the guy, be like, well, I don't even bother with that. Like, you'll never know whether you were good enough or lucky enough or whatever because you nipped it in the bus. before you even had a chance to succeed. Yeah. And so there's a certain amount of the business, amount of the industry that takes place. You know, a lot of movies don't get shot in LA anymore.

A lot more stuff is shot in Atlanta than anywhere. And so, but the decisions are made there. And so I, you know, was competing. I was actually competing with people who were in front of the people who were making decisions and getting close even though I'd never met those people. Right. So, but it's a different thing when you were.

walk in the room and you come there. I always say if you go to L.A. with New York Hustle, nothing can stop you. So once I showed up, it was like, oh, that's it. Now we got New York Hustle. So give me this, Mike. So did, what was the life that you were envisioning for yourself long term here? Like you were getting by, you were, you know, you were living and you were in this like sounds like really great cultural and artistic community where you were inspired so were you content to like like this is the next 50 years of my life doing bit parts here and there doing theater here and there teaching where i had to and and this is going to you know i don't think i don't think i knew i mean i had plays that were

being done throughout the country that i had written you know i was doing you know roles on like guest starring roles or recurring roles um more so guestar roles more so guest our roles more so guest our roles on TV things here I was getting close to things here and in there there was theater I was doing some theater off Broadway like acting in and theater off Broadway

and directing things here and there so I didn't really know like all of those roads could lead to a substantial success sure you know any one of them and it wasn't like I was far away from any of them right so it was just it was just a keep your head down and at some point

yeah yeah I All of those things I was doing very well that if I saw somebody and they told me my exact story and they would say, what do I do? I'd be like, you're doing great. Just keep going. And so it was just the thing of, you know, it had to be the right thing to tip me over. And was writing and directing and acting was doing all three of those things equally creatively satisfying and inspiring?

was it was it sort of strategic or was it was it yes the answer is yes yes that it was equally like like in other words they're they're all different um you know i still you know i have a film right now that we're uh that i've written that we have a director on that you know we're working on in a studio and so i enjoyed the process of sitting in the room and in this one i have a writing partner if i have if you have a good writing partner it's even better sure you know But sitting in a room where you don't have to collaborate with, you know, 100 people. And you are sort of living in this, like once you start writing something, the weird thing that happens, once you start putting the pen to paper or you start typing it up, you begin to walk around sort of in your own story.

Things begin to come to you. And that process is a very, it's a liberating. and spiritual and it's exhilarating that you get to create this world with your words. It's, I love that process just as much as I love acting. Well, I was going to say, like, when things started on the acting front to really, like, gain momentum, and I guess 42 is the breakthrough, is the one that really, like, suddenly jumpstarts at all. It seems like you didn't waste much time in terms of, yeah, the acting is has now kicked up to another level, but

you're a producer, for instance, on Marshall, right? So, and you talk about this other film you're developing. Like, you're not, like, compartmentalizing and saying, like, okay, now's the time just to act and I'll, I'll, I'll, there's a long life we'll get to that other stuff when I get to it. You're like, you're using the capital you've kind of, like, got in from being cast in a Marvel movie,

et cetera, to help these other projects and to fuel these other creative pursuits. Well, it also helps the projects that you know about, too. It helps the projects that I'm, that's why I have a producing credit on Marsha is because I actually act like a producer on the film. I care about it on that level. You know, I'm giving notes on the script. Because we know some actors get that credit. It's not necessarily the case.

Yeah, they're not necessarily doing that. You know, I will go shake hands and kiss babies so we can get the money or whatever it is. Yeah. So it, for me, you know, it's not like I'm just, I just have the credit. I have it because I deserve it and I feel like those other tools

that I have as a writer as a director come into play when I play the lead if I play in the lead I'm thinking about the whole film

in a similar way as the director or the producer I'm concerned not just about my character I'm concerned about how the character fits in with all

these other characters and whether this person's wardrobe is right or not you know so you know for me is it is always the bigger picture whether or not I have the producing credit or whatever it is. It's interesting because, you know, that first, quote, unquote, big film 42 playing Jackie Robinson. And I, I'm not exactly the same way, but, you know, I've talked to, I've had

the privilege of talking to Harrison Ford in the past, and I know enough about him and the way he talks about his approach to filmmaking, and he talks about story. He talks about sort of being a cog in that wheel. And in some similar ways to what you're talking about. in that, like, yeah, he's got a job to do, but he's not just on set just thinking about his job. The thing about Harrison Ford is, you know, at the end of a day, I remember I'll never forget this. At the end of one of our days, we were on the baseball field, and they were like, this is the martini and Harrison Ford picks up a broom and start sweeping. Wow. And he did it more than once.

He did it. We're outside. We did the inside. Wasn't an ironic sweep. No, no, no. He was like, he was like, I'm going to help clean up. This is it. And I was like, what?

Now I'm like, where's the dust pan? I got to do something. You know, I got to do. I got to do something. He's sweeping. You know what I'm saying? He's blue collar. You know what I'm saying?

He's not, he's not just sitting around waiting on people to look after him. I mean, he will do that too. But, you know, but, but, but, but, but, yeah, he picked up the broom. It's interesting because, you know, that film, if you look at your, you know, your credits, I mean, taking out the TV stuff that you'd done here and there before then, film-wise, you really hadn't done that much prior to 42. Right. You kind of made, like, again, talking about this kind of strange circuitous path,

this leap to, like, leading man roles, like, without having to do a ton of supporting parts in film. So I'm just curious, did you feel like it was a jump, or did you feel, again, you weren't, like, at 22 years old, you'd live the life, you'd been living this very artistically, culturally rich life in the theater. So did it feel like, oh, shit, I'm out of my element, or, oh, shit, I'm ready for this. This is what I prepared for. Yeah, it felt like I was ready for it. You know, for me, I had been preparing for this all that time.

And so it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, I'm not ready to play a lead role. I was like, well, shoot, if I don't, I got to do it. it. You know, I have to do it now. And I've been, you know, if I, if I use the skills that I have, I'm ready to do this. And I've done it on stage, which I think is, you know, sometimes harder. So, you know, it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, this is just a different stage. And then, you know, I have the benefit of them yelling, cut, and saying, I want to do it again. Like, that's a luxury. That's a luxury, yeah. Did, um, it seems like you, like many performers probably get off on sort of like the physical challenges of roles. If you look at some of these kind of early leading roles,

some commonality beyond the fact that you've played a bunch of real life people of course is the fact that Jackie Robinson get on up I mean Black Panther these are all roles where you have the physicality is a huge

part of the role is that fair to say that that's like a key for you to kind of find your character the weird thing is that I always say that I always start really really small and internal it always starts

It's more like a whisper, more like meditation, more like stillness than anything. Because I feel like I don't want to pull things that don't belong into this new space, into this new journey. And I may have tendencies that I'm bringing into it. So it's important to like sort of get to a ground zero before you start. No, that makes sense. You don't want to make the big. choices early on right right so send you down the wrong path yeah so it actually to me the more

important part is the internal part and I think from that you begin to see a whole lot of different dynamics because you're still you know so I the physicality of like there's obviously you obviously you need a physicality for all these roles and maybe not so much for Marshall but there is a physicality to just swagger there There, too. So to me, I think it's more so than the movement, it is the changing, like changing, well, what does he look like? Right. You know, what is, how do I change my body to look like this person and that person?

Because I've had to play these roles, you know, trying to find some kind of in physical ends up happening. But I don't think it's the place I start. Are you trying to find, like, the overlap? in terms of who you are and who the person is, whether that's like, because I know you've talked about how one of the things that get over for you and taking this role was you didn't look like him. That's a big, you know, that's something, that's something's going to get over psychologically, I guess, to make sure that everybody, the family, whatever is on board. Yeah, like for, you know, the overlaps are always going to happen. There's always going to be some things that are the same

and you don't have to focus on those things as much. You do need to acknowledge them so you don't leave them out. So in this case, he went to how we walked some of the same hallways, even though it was a different time period. You know, he went to Howard University grad, graduated from there. I went to Howard University. So there's a certain understanding about what that means. Like, because you're taught about the past at Howard.

So I get, you know, I would get a little bit of Thurgood Marshall. from being there. Also, he spent time in New York, spent time in Harlem. And even though it's a different time periods and renaissance, you know, New York is always going to be sort of a tastemaker when it comes to the rest of the world. So you have this guy going into small towns or southern towns or towns in the north.

He's from New York, and people are going to look at him. He's one of those New Yorkers, but he's also a tastemaker. Right. He's also a person not only coming there trying to bring a certain brand of justice that should exist throughout the country, but he's bringing a certain style, you know, a certain way of doing things, a certain way of talking, you know, there's, there are stories of people coming into town to see Thurgood Marshall try a case because it had a theatricality to it. So it does, back to the physicality, does end up being a thing of, you know,

presence, you know. Do you, for those that don't know a little bit about this film in particular, you know, it's not like the cradle to grave biopic, which is, which is frankly tough to do and you know that better than anybody. But like this one is an interesting take. Reginald-Hundlin, by the way, is the director. That's an interesting filmmaker. When I heard that name associated with this, I was like, okay, this is going to be interesting. And it's as much a courtroom drama thriller, or not political, courtroom thriller as it is a biopic. do you feel like that that informed

that you still get across kind of like the life of this man even though it's like a finite period of time yes yes well the thing about it is you know you because you since you brought up Reggie this movie is you know Reginald Huntland has written

Black Panther yeah you know he's written other comic movies that has new comic books coming out right now so he has that genre you know always sort of lingering in his work you know the idea of of that superhero so this is actually like a superhero origin story totally feels like an origin story yeah absolutely because because ultimately for those who know who throgate marshal ends up becoming right you know he he

becomes the guy that wins 29 of 32 cases in the supreme court becomes a supreme court justice and himself makes laws and I skimp Brown v. Board of Education that little thing that allows to sit beside each other in school. But he becomes this person but he's not that

person in this story. So the origin of this superhero is like, well, how does he get to that point? That's this movie. And I think also you have this man who has the odds against him, or the odds of time,

space like he's racing across the country to fight injustice in several places that's a that's a superhero theme you know time and space being your enemy um even though you may have the power you can't save everybody right so uh it's also kind of like the superhero in secret like he's kind of like the background yeah he can't be the front facing exactly hero exactly so it's it's it has all of those elements. So I feel like, you know, in doing this movie, there's even the Western. There's even like the guy coming into town to, that's literally why they call it Marshall. He's the guy coming into town to implement justice. He only works alone. He doesn't want to work with this guy. So that's a big job. Yeah, the book for his guns. So the weird thing about it is

when I read all that and you and I realized well this is actually his real story you know you absolutely get the history like it's it's crazy that it is true it's crazy that that he actually did have that swagger it's crazy that he was that charismatic and it's crazy that he actually tried those number of cases but you get the sense of what he's going to become and the history like There's one little story they tell about Howard in the film as I'm eating a sandwich. I tell the story about how I, you know, sue the University of Maryland. I went to Howard and Howard was in a good school, and it ends up becoming a great law school. The history is sort of told in a sort of like in passing way, and you don't get bogged down in it in this movie.

If there is some commonality in some of these characters you've played kind of early in your film career, you know, a bunch of icons, whether it's comic book heroes literally or figuratively, these real life kind of champions of justice and change and arts, is there a desire for you to be like the nebishi, like less heroic person? I mean, it is because, I mean, it's great to play the hero, and Blake would have played these icons, but wouldn't it be nice to play something

with less, like, uh, yes, uh, import attached to? Yes, yes, absolutely. Like, you know, not to say that I don't want to want this to continue, but, but you want to have variety. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You want to, you want to, you want to, you want to be the everyday man, you know, and so, um, it's, the truth is like, you know, that's what I was looking for when this came, you know,

I, I don't want to say that's what I was looking for when, but like, Panther came because, you know, I was definitely looking at who Black Panther to go. But, you know, I was looking for that, you know, everyday modern guy that you, you know, and those scripts have come and I've agreed to do them and they've fallen apart too. So it's not like I haven't tried. It's easier to Greenlight the kind of the bigger stories in a way. So when was the first conversation about Black Panther? Can you give me a little bit of the timeline now? It's, According to what I'm reading, it seems like it's about three years ago.

Does that sound about, right? We were doing, I don't even know where, eat, I don't know what the day is. So you're talking about, like, going back years. What I'm curious about is how long, how much time passed? How were we talking before, like, that official big announcement that you guys? We were on the press.

I'm going to look over here because I may get some help. I was on the press tour for Get On Up. So I don't know what year that was. I was right now. It's a while back. It's like, but I was on the press store for get on up over, like we were,

I was in Zurich. And, um, I actually didn't have, uh, international calling on my phone. And on that day, I heard a voice say,

you need to get international calling on your phone. Call your mom right now. Like she, because, you know, you can't get your, your mom to use Skype or anything. Like,

it's not going to do it. It's like, wasn't working. So I got international, called my mom, and that night, my agent called me while we were out or else, you know, I wouldn't have gotten this phone call if I hadn't done that. Called me while we're out, and he said, hey, you need to get on the phone with Marvel in, like, 15 minutes. And I was like, I'm walking on the red carpet. He's like, get off the red carpet, to have this phone call. So it happened. This was probably like, I want to say it was September, October? Help me. Like, it was, it was like two or three months before it was announced.

And what was that call? Was that like literally, was that an offer or like would you be open to this? Because you never auditioned, right? You never had to do the screen test. It was just like, we heard you were interested, you were interested in this role. I think you, know what it is. You know, Marvel is funny. I think you know what it is. Don't make me say it out loud. Don't make me say it out loud. And I was like, if it's what I think it is, yes, I want to do it. And they were like

a cool because we think we're going to bring this character into the movie we're doing right now, which obviously became Civil War. And essentially they were like, everybody's here. Everybody was on the phone call. Figer de Russo brothers, Nate

Moore. It was like Louis Desperzeal. know, everybody was on the phone call. And so I was like, okay, yeah, of course I'll do it. And I think I was in Portugal maybe two weeks later, and then the actual offer came in. So, but I had to be quiet for a couple of months. It's amazing to think, I mean, like, because if you look at any of the other leading guys, like, they all had to audition, whether it's Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, they had to fight tooth or nail.

not to say you didn't fight for, you put it out there. Right. But it's a pretty cool position to be in the way this went down. Right. I can't tell you why it went that way from me.

Right. But were you, well, I'm curious, because we were talking about sort of like being creatively involved, and you had the unique opportunity of being involved in this before a director was attached.

You know, and like, so did that help you kind of like steer, were you able to kind of steer the direction of the character because you kind of came on board so early on? Do you feel like any early notes that you gave to Kevin and company have lasted through the development process where we are today? Yes, I would definitely say so.

You know, and the thing about it is that the character, you know, first of all, Marvel, I think is really smart. And they're going to take any great ideas and use them. and I feel like the director that they ended up bringing on Ryan Cougla is also really smart and so we just the collaboration process when when everybody in the room wants something to work ego is out of the way and there's a passion for for something ultimately that's that's you have a great chance of making something special yeah so yeah there were certain things that I loved about the character even before I knew it was coming

that I had written in the journal and I told them everything I loved about Black Panther before we started. Can you give me an example of like something you said? Oh, Jesus. There's a, like, for instance,

there's a particular scene with, I say, I don't want to tell. You almost got me. Almost got me. Almost got me. Jesus. Like, I almost did it. I almost did it.

No, I can't tell you nothing. I can't tell you nothing. A couple quick things before you go. Because, yes, we'll have time to talk about this more in length when it comes out. Have you seen a cut of the film, though? Have you seen? I haven't seen a complete cut. No.

Okay. You feeling good? I feel good. Yeah, I feel good. You have to also feel good about sort of the early reception. I mean, like, you know, in a different way, you know, Wonder Woman went through this, like, where it felt like before it came out, like, the weight of the world was on this film. Like, if this doesn't succeed, like, this, it was,

like, oh, that could be it. Wait, five years for another female-led superhero film. See, I didn't feel that way. I thought Wonder Woman was going to do well anyway. No, I hear you, but like there was, who knows? We don't know now. I felt like Wonder Woman was going to do well, and I thought, and I automatically thought that there would be other chances because there was also, you know, Captain Marvel.

Sure, that was already, yeah, yeah. So I was like, they're going to make this work one way or the other because they have to. They have to do it. I didn't feel that way. that one of the one was successful so what about for black panther do you think like god forbid for whatever reason it doesn't work with audiences the cyborg not get green light do you feel like a weight of that yes i actually that's what i'm saying i feel the weight of it from from that perspective way more i think we walked into this saying we can't fail like oh my gosh like i don't

want to mess this up like it'll be the worst thing in the world if we don't get this right um and i'm not saying that I don't know what other people felt but I just know I look at it and I go as a black man and I don't want to be the guy I don't want to be yeah I didn't want to be the guy that didn't you know didn't do it well are you ready to play this character for another decade of your life or you like uh sure I haven't I haven't signed my life away to 10 more films but but uh you know I want to I want to I want to play play it as long as I should play it. And, you know, I want to also play other stuff. I want to have that, still have that flexibility in my body of work. Are you done with Atlanta for Avengers

3 and 4? I don't know how involved you are in those, but I can't ask that. Oh, boy. I can't answer that question. Okay, well, last thing on it. Has it been fun to mix it up with this kind of insane cast and kind of play against a few different characters you probably haven't had an opportunity. We're talking about Marshall? I'm talking about Avengers. Oh man, I love everybody. You know what I'm saying?

Like, like, everybody is where they are for a reason. Let me put it like that. Like, I want nobody from my clan. Like, nobody. I'm paraphrasing that because I, you know, I'm trying to be clean on you. That's okay. This audience knows better.

Would you consider Downey a mentor? Is he somebody that's Absolutely. Nobody did it better. You know what I'm saying? Like, not just on screen, but just the way he lives. Like, he's a cool, he's a cool person. He's sincere about, you know, the things that he believes in. He sincerely wants you to do well.

Yeah, definitely. And to everybody, he is. How, moving past Marshall and the Venture stuff, you mentioned the script that you've been developing. You have a director attached. When do you think we're going to see you direct? Because obviously that was an early ambition. Do you think we have time to squeeze that in?

Yeah. Yeah. It probably won't be in 2018. But yeah, maybe 2019. Nice. And theater? Who knows? I mean, it's tough.

When you have all these opportunities, it's tough to kind of prioritize it. Just trying to figure out the time is the issue. It's like when. You know, I don't know how many conversations I have with people in there. It's like, come on, let's do something together. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And it's like, when? I'm booked 18 months for the next to my life.

It's good, you know, champagne problems. Yeah, exactly. Well, as I said, I was looking forward to this because we haven't had a chance to talk at length. It's good. And I've been a real admirer of your work. And to hear you talk so eloquently about the interesting path that you've been on and the cool kind of choices you're making, I think it's probably inspiring to a lot of young actors out there that might be listening to this. Yeah, like, for me, it's the thing of, I think you should always choose what you love.

and what you love might not have a lot of money attached to it. And that's if you go back to the early part of our conversation. What you love, it may not pay that well. And so there's certain decisions you need to make for the sake of, you know, business. But other decisions need to remain true to the art because in the end, that's what you get known for. Totally. You get known for that, and those things do eventually pay. Yeah, well, you put in the work, man, and all your success is clearly well-deserved.

Hopefully this is the first long chat of many. Yeah, congrats, man. Thank you. Thanks, thank you. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressure to do this by Josh.

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