"They came to me after they killed me, and said 'We have a script for you'..."
Chadwick Boseman has been front-and-centre of the MCU since his arrival as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, and since then he has appeared in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, as well as his own box-office busting standalone movie.
However, there must be a certain kind of concern about your first major post-MCU role, both because your fans will likely singularly see you in that role and it might be difficult to break the mold in their eyes, but also because Black Panther was so hugely successful, that anything else might be seen as teeny-tiny in comparison.
Thankfully, in the case of Boseman, he has cleverly side-stepped into the world of cop-thrillers with his new movie 21 Bridges, which is executive-produced by Anthony & Joe Russo, the directors of Civil War, and the last two Avengers movies.
In the movie, Boseman plays a detective who assigned to a case that involves the murder of several members of the NYPD, and alongside an all-star cast (including J.K Simmons, Sienna Miller, Taylor Kitsch, Keith David, and Stephan James), they begin to discover that there is a lot more to this massacre than there initially seemed.
JOE was lucky enough to sit down with Boseman and chat about his new movie, and how difficult it was for him, and 21 Bridges director Brian Kirk (Game Of Thrones) to keep the secrets about their massive projects while they were shooting this film.
On top of that, we also chatted to Boseman about the representation of American police on the big screen, at a time when the real-life representation of American police seems to be at an all-time low. When making a movie about potentially dodgy cops, does the real-world implications weigh in on those telling these stories make any impact?
And, of course, even though we're a good way out from the release of Black Panther II (6 May 2022), we had to ask what he is most excited about in the upcoming sequel, plus we reminded him that we were lucky enough to recently chat to Denzel Washington, who told a great story about sneaking into a screening of the first Black Panther movie and bumping into Chadwick and his Black Panther director Ryan Coogler.
Would Chadwick and Ryan be able to do anything about getting Denzel involved in the MCU? Watch our interview in full right here:
Meanwhile, you can watch 21 Bridges when it arrives in Irish cinemas on Friday 22 November.
Watch the final trailer for the movie right here:
Clip via STX Entertainment UK & Ireland
