THE MAKING OF AN ICON
JACKIE ROBINSON , 42 (2013)
IT’S PERHAPS NO surprise that 42 was the movie that brought Chadwick Boseman to Marvel’s attention, and ultimately set him on the path to Wakanda. Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in baseball’s Major League, was a reserved man who, for the most part, kept his inner feelings buried. Those are qualities that can be found in T’Challa. And they’re qualities that, according to 42’s writer-director Brian Helgeland, resonated deeply within Boseman as well.
Boseman had just two movies — and — under his belt when he got the role. He was already in his mid-thirties (but looked younger), allowing him to bring experience and accrued wisdom to the role of Robinson as he navigates his way through a world full of racist scumbags trying to take him down a peg or two at every turn. There’s the flight attendant who bumps Jackie and his wife Rachel from a flight because Rachel used a whites-only restroom. There’s the opposition team manager (Alan Tudyk) who fires a fusillade of racist epithets, including the N-word, when Robinson is at bat; and who, later, poses for a publicity shot with a clearly reluctant Robinson. And there are his own teammates, so threatened by Robinson’s very presence on their side that they draw up a petition to have him kicked out.
