When Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman spoke about terminally ill children instead of his cancer diagnosis: ‘It’s a humbling experience…’

Speaking about them, an obviously emotional Chadwick said, “There were two kids, Ian and Nathan, who recently passed from cancer, and throughout our filming, I was communicating with them, knowing they were both terminal. Their parents said to me they are trying to hold on till this movie (Black Panther) comes. And I was like, ‘I gotta go get up to gym, I gotta work. I gotta learn these lines, work on this accent.’ No one thought it will be that meaningful to them.”

“It’s a humbling experience. It put me back in the mind of a kid, because I too lived for such moments, for that toy or video game to come and to experience it. Yeah, it means a lot,” Chadwick concluded as he broke down even as castmates Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira held his hand and comforted him.

Chadwick fought cancer for four years before finally succumbing to it in August, 2020. He was first diagnosed with the illness in 2016 and worked throughout that period tirelessly to give us some of his best work. He was posthumously nominated for an Academy Award as well as an Emmy Award. Some of his more popular works include titles like Black Panther, 42, Marshall, Avengers: Infinity War, Da 5 Blood and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.