Chadwick Boseman appeared to hint at his private health battles in a recently-resurfaced interview from 2017, in which he spoke about the physical demands of shooting films.
Yesterday, the family of the Black Panther star announced his tragic, untimely death from colon cancer at age 43, saying he was diagnosed with the disease back in 2016.
Overnight, writer Matt Jacobs Tweeted out a screenshot of an interview that he conducted with Boseman for The Huffington Post, in which the star hinted that he was struggling.
Jacobs asked the actor about shooting the movie Marshall between two Black Panther projects, and whether he had to “bulk up, slim down and then bulk up again?”
“Right,” replied the actor, nodding his head and looking exhausted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Jacobs then commented that Boseman had been through the “wringer”, to which he responded: “Oh, you don’t even know. You have no idea. One day I’ll live to tell the story.”
I interviewed Chadwick Boseman in 2017, and to think he was going through cancer while satisfying the physical demands of a Marvel movie…https://t.co/MAB1ZYdcGS pic.twitter.com/eLdear66IU
— Matt Jacobs (@majacobs) August 29, 2020
In a statement about his passing, Boseman’s family revealed that he filmed his final roles in the midst of undergoing chemotherapy and surgery for his cancer.
In another resurfaced clip from a 2018 SiruisXM interview, the actor became emotional while talking about visiting two young boys with terminal cancer, who were “holding on” for Black Panther.
He said:
“It’s a humbling experience because you’re like, ‘This can’t mean that much to them,’ you know? But seeing how the world has taken us on, seeing how the movement is, how it’s taken on a life of its own, I realized that they anticipated something great.”
You can see the clip below:
This 2018 clip of Chadwick Boseman getting emotional about the impact Black Panther had on two little kids with terminal cancer is especially heartbreaking, knowing now that he was fighting the same fight. RIP. pic.twitter.com/5giV543c8L
— Chicks in the Office (@ChicksInTheOff) August 29, 2020
