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What took Chadwick Boseman so long?
The question suits the purpose of our conversation—age, reflection, wisdom—but it's really the most basic curiosity. You graduate from college and then eleven years later, at 35, you get your first starring role—and that starring role is Jackie Robinson in the baseball biopic 42. That's followed by a two-year, four-film stretch that includes another starring role, this summer, as James Brown in Get On Up. Two of the most ascendant and power-shifting showmen in the history of American entertainment. But to reach the top of that mountain without leaving a whole lot of breadcrumbs along the trail? With Boseman, there's just this whole big piece of time that's...missing.
It was a decade—his twenties—in which mistakes were made ("What did I do right, man?"), but also in which excellence was pursued. See, Boseman never wanted to be an actor. He wanted to be a writer and a director, for stage and screen, who happened to act, too. He spent those ten years in an apartment in Brooklyn, secluding himself from friends in order to write plays ("Some of my best writing came when I was poor and hungry—living off water and oatmeal, mind clear") and dreaming literal dreams about becoming a poly-hyphenate.
His reps told him he had to pick one route and double down, but Boseman insisted on pursuing "all the things." His writing won recognition, and he found work as a director, but he failed repeatedly to land a major film role. The day he committed to a life of the stage, of course, was the day he got the call to play Jackie Robinson.
We meet in early August, a few days after the opening of Get On Up. The film is fine, but Boseman is just this vibrating stick of neon throughout—an outrageous physical performer (he did the splits ninety-six times in one day of filming) and absolutely the reason to see it. He's been through the promo gauntlet with42, but the attention for this film—or more precisely, its capacity (by virtue of not being a Disney movie) to reach an audience of peers from his past—is affecting him in not unsubtle ways.
"I'm hearing from some people, man," he says, somewhat ominously. "And I've definitely closed things down. No new friends. My circle's a lot less open than it's been in the past." But there's a counterbalance to the disorientation of the moment. A new opportunity to pursue old dreams. "It took me a long time to recognize and accept that you really do have to choose a very clear path for your entry point," he says. "But once you define yourself, you can venture off into all those other arenas." That plan, from all those years ago, to get going doing "all the things."
···Do you read reviews? Do you know what they're saying about your James Brown performance in Get On Up?
No, I don't let them tell me anything. I don't read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers. [smiling wide]
The way you're smiling, it sounds like it's been pretty—
No, I'm not smiling because of that. I'm just smiling because when you do that, you run the risk of hearing... You know, especially people you've worked with before, they say stuff like, "Oh, that was bullshit!" or "It was all right, but..." People tell you the truth. But with Get On Up, my reps have said enough to sort of let me know I'm gonna get another job. I think one of their lines was "We have a quote sheet, and if you're ever having a bad day, we'll just tell you one of them."
The thing people are most enamored with is the physicality of the role. You can overdub the music, but you can't fake the dancing.
You can't fake the singing, either.
Has your body—in acting or otherwise—ever let you down?
Shit! "Otherwise"? What "otherwise" is it, man? [laughs] These roles kill my body. When we were doing 42, I don't think people really get how extensive the training was. It was probably more so than even for Get On Up. We had more time. We had three and a half months of spring training, and it was two-a-days. So it was three hours of baseball practice in the morning, and then I would eat and go straight to conditioning sessions. And the conditioning sessions were, I mean, madness, how hard it is.
They would shoot each moment at twenty-four frames, thirty-six, forty-eight, all the way up to ninety-six. So if I stole a base, I had to steal it four or five times just to have what they needed. And something might have gone wrong with the camera; something might have gone wrong with the person who's supposed to catch the ball; something might have gone wrong with me. So I did some takes, I know, fifty times. Then again, I did the splits ninety-six times one day on Get On Up. But I didn't give out then. I would say that particular day was probably harder than any baseball day I had, but the average baseball day, wow.
Your last three roles—Brown, Robinson, an NFL prospect in Draft Day—have required some serious conditioning. What's your favorite fitness trick you've picked up in recent years?
Juicing.
As in pureed fruits and vegetables, not steroids?
[laughs] Yeah, juicing as in I got my own personal masticating juicer at home. Done some cleanses, too.
What lets you know it's time for a cleanse? Does a switch go off that just says: "I'm disgusting."
I mean, I never let it get too bad, but, like, last year I did a cleanse because of the press tour surrounding 42. Everybody wants to buy you a drink. Everywhere you go, somebody's like, "Hey, I loved your movie! I'll buy you a drink!" [laughs] "Drinks! Drinks!" So afterward I'm just like, "I need to get all this out of my system."
Okay, so besides juicing, what's the one exercise you'd do forever—the thing that keeps you in shape for roles like these?
The exercise I'd say I'd keep doing in some form or fashion would be boxing. I've been at it for seven years. I have some spots in New York I like to go.
Speaking of New York, what's your split now? You grew up in South Carolina, went to college in D.C., lived your twenties out in New York. But are you in L.A. most of the time now?
I'm nowhere most of the time. I've been living out of suitcases for the last two years with four movies stacked up—42, Draft Day, Get On Up, and then straight into Gods of Egypt [out in 2016]. I don't know where I'll really end up when the dust settles. Up until I started 42, I was pretty much fifty-fifty New York–L.A. Just before I got the Jackie Robinson role, I was planning to settle full-time in New York, but I had to come back out here to do spring training. So ever since, I've been here more than there and haven't really been able to get back that much.
You spent your twenties in Brooklyn as a stage director and a playwright. What did you do right and wrong?
I guess the best way to say it is, when you get out of school, you don't really understand the differences in the different aspects of the business. Like, what role does doing a play, where does that take you, versus, you know, I'm gonna concentrate on doing independent films, or I'm going to concentrate on... If you're working as a writer, that doesn't necessarily take you down the role of being a movie star. I said yes too much. I said yes to certain projects that weren't for me. It was somebody else's vision and somebody else's dream and somebody else's artistic endeavor, but it didn't necessarily fit in my grand scheme. I was just trying to be around the people who do what I want to do, and you know, I think it takes a little bit more investigation to figure out, does this road actually lead to what I want?
I remember my first agent telling me—because they found me as an actor, but I was probably more interested in writing and maybe directing—they were like, "Well, you can't do both things." And I was like, "I'm gonna show you." And the truth of the matter is that we were both right. But you know, you have to choose a very clear path for your entry point, and then, once you define yourself as that clearly, you can venture off into other arenas, but especially at the beginning.
You don't want to hear that when you're just getting going.
You don't want to hear it, but it's very true. It's true, it's true. I was trying to do all the things—things I'd dreamed about, literally had dreams, saw myself doing—but it's formless, you know what I'm saying? It's not something that you can grasp.
How much do early career decisions have to do with just making enough money to get by?
Once you start getting big roles as an actor, everything pays. So what are you making decisions on? It's about the director or the script or whatever. But before you reach that point, you're taking jobs with, say, a theater company, in spite of the fact that it's not paying your bills. I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York and I didn't have money to pay my rent. I was going to the mailbox every day waiting for the check to come. When you don't have money, when you've got, like, a jar full of change and each day it's "Okay, I've got enough to get on the train" and "Maybe that check's gonna come today..." There's nothing more stressful than your stomach growling. But interestingly enough, some of my best writing came when I was poor and hungry—living off water and oatmeal, mind clear.
Eventually your writing started making waves and you got work as a stage director. You were prepared to give up on acting and pursue that full-time in New York.
This was just a few years ago. I was waiting to hear about 42. Nobody had called me. Nobody had told me anything. I had gone in for it 100 percent, but there was no reason for me to think I'd done well. Nobody had called me and said, "Hey, they really liked your audition." Nobody was like, "Hey, they're really thinking about you." Nothing. But on that night, the play I was directing ended, and I went next door to a bar and was watching the end of the World Series, and I was like, "Yo, I'm about to get this role," and I knew it. And that was the night they called me. Just like—boom!—"It's yours."
People look at your two breakout roles—Robinson and Brown—and maybe regard them as though you're actively choosing to play only the most important black men in the history of American entertainment. But I'm starting to think it just happened to work out that way.
That year before 42, every pilot I went in for, it was like, "You're gonna test for it and then somebody else will get it." It was a frustrating year, because I was so close to getting things that would have taken me to another place. But it was never actually happening. For some reason I couldn't get anything. I only later realized that it was some divine intervention, because if I did some of those things, I wouldn't have been available. You don't get stuff, and it opens up other opportunities. But no, it's not like I'd been waiting around for only the biggest roles.
Anything else you would've done differently during your pre-42 days in New York?
I might have had too many friends in my twenties. I've definitely closed things down. No new friends now. I would go through these cycles of being really, really focused on work, and not being around anyone, to being around everyone. And that could be distracting. It was nothing or everything. I think my circle is a lot less open now than it has been in the past.
Is part of that on account of the visibility of 42 and Get On Up?
I'm hearing from some people, man. I think it's like, some people who, under normal circumstances, might be out of your life—they all come back to you. Everything returns. Everything returns, because the world condenses. The world condenses so that things you'd normally say, "Oh, that's the last time I ever see that person again," like, it all come back to you. Every day does that to me.
With Get On Up holding in theaters—due in part to Oscar rumblings for your turn as Brown—are you finally in the position to take a breather?
I'm not kicking back enjoying the spoils, because it's like I don't think I've done my best work yet, you know what I'm saying? It ain't no time to rest right now. It's the time to get your head clear and figure out what you're gonna do next, but it's not necessarily the time to go to the islands.[laughs]
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