Chadwick Boseman: I didn't want to be on camera

Chadwick Boseman

"Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman says he was initially a reluctant actor. The 40-year-old actor, who has become a global phenomenon with his portrayal of Wakanda king - T'Challa/Black Panther in the cult hit, says he felt more comfortable behind the curtains and for him.

"I was more so of the mind of the director and the writer. I didn't want to be onstage and I didn't want to be on camera. Not at all. My older brother, he's a dancer; he was also in plays. I would sit in the audience with my mom watching the director, and I was more interested in what he was doing than the performance onstage; it didn't register that it was something I wanted to do. I became an actor because I was just trying to learn the whole process," Boseman told Esquire magazine.

The actor says despite big studios telling him that films with a "black lead" would not fair well overseas, he is satisfied how his film became a game-changer at the box office globally. "Studios will very often tell you that movies with a black lead are not going to work overseas. That was the thing for me - this means something everywhere in the world. It could actually change how studios respond to (black) movies. You can no longer say definitively, 'Black movies don't work (outside of the US)'," he says.

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