On the second-to-last day of filming for the upcoming James Brown biopic, Get On Up, Chadwick Boseman, resplendent in a mustard-colored mock turtleneck, dark vest and dark pants, slides across the stage of the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi, spins around, punches the air with the microphone stand to punctuate the horn line from Browns I Got the Feelin, then dips back toward the band to sing, Baby, baby, baby/baby, baby, baby. Today, the Coliseum is a stand-in for Boston Garden, and Boseman is playing Brown during a famous 1968 show, the night after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. A few yards away, the films director, Tate Taylor, and two producers, Mick Jagger and Brian Grazer, stand, arms folded, staring at video monitors, taking it all in.
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Its a really hard role to do, Jagger says, an hour later, during a break in filming. It wouldve been safer to take someone from Broadway who had a lot of dancing and singing background. Chad would be the first to tell you, he wasnt a dancer. But after hed worked for six weeks on it, he immeasurably had become the character.
Jagger would know. Although, he says he and Brown werent close friends when the soul legend was alive (Brown died in 2006), he spent plenty of time with him in backstage dressing rooms and concert halls, studying and absorbing his stage demeanor, his dynamic with his band and, of course, his dance moves. The way he interacted with the audience, the timing, I was taking it all in and trying to understand the whole picture of it, Jagger says.
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Boseman, who earned plaudits for his portrayal of baseball great Jackie Robinson in 42, initially wasnt interested in becoming the Godfather of Soul.
I felt like I shouldnt play another icon, I shouldnt do another biopic, he says. And the singing and the dancing I can hold a tune and Ill dance if I go to the club, but doing this is a whole other level. James Brown influenced hip-hop, he influenced Michael Jackson and Prince. Its sort of the foundation for a lot of things were still doing.
Taylor was convinced, though, that Boseman, who grew up in Anderson, South Carolina, not far from Browns hometown of Augusta, Georgia, was the guy for the job.
I wanted someone with the red soil of that part of the country in their veins, says Taylor, a Mississippi native who had previously directed the surprise 2011 Oscar-winner, The Help. When I heard Chad was from Anderson, I could not believe it. Hes protective of the men of the South, and said, We cannot mess this up! I dont know if I can do it right! And I was like, Im with you! Just come on! And he came in and killed it.
The film, which Grazer has been trying to get made since the Nineties, will follow Browns story from his hardscrabble childhood all the way through his tempestuous later years. In addition to all the physical demands of the role, Boseman has had to walk a fine line between inhabiting the character and simply impersonating him.
Youre not acting if youre doing an impression, he says. Thats the total opposite of what you want to do. Its a real person and you have that pressure of trying to find the spirit of that person without imitating them. Todays filming, he says, was demanding but nowhere near the toughest hes had.
There was one day that was like 15 hours of dancing, take after take after take after take. I counted up and I think I did 90 splits.
So its been fun, he continues, smiling, but Im also ready for this to stop.