Even if it wasn’t for the actor’s tragic passing last summer at the age of just 43 following a battle with colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman would have still been a serious player during this year’s awards season for his powerhouse performance in Netflix drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
There were a few cynical headlines making the rounds when it was first announced that the streaming service were going to be mounting a serious campaign to see his turn as Levee recognized, but as soon as the movie was released, any doubters were forced to eat their words. Boseman is nothing short of astounding as the ambitious trumpet player, and he delivers three very different but equally emotional monologues that marked him out as the one to beat in the Best Actor race.
The reputation and credibility of the Golden Globes has nosedived in recent years, but that doesn’t make it any less of a big deal that the Black Panther star finds himself up for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, and if anything, it’s surprising that he didn’t land a double nomination after he’s also been in the running for Best Supporting Actor from other awards bodies thanks to a brief but memorable appearance in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods.
In fact, the incendiary Vietnam drama didn’t pick up a single Golden Globe nod at all, but Boseman is still the clear favorite to win Best Actor. The competition is admittedly stiff with Sound of Metal‘s Riz Ahmed, The Father‘s Anthony Hopkins, Mank‘s Gary Oldman and The Mauritanian‘s Tahar Rahim also on the shortlist, but anyone who’s seen Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will surely believe that the trophy is destined to put an exclamation point on Boseman’s legacy.
