Chadwick Boseman refused to perpetuate Black stereotypes with movie roles

Chadwick Boseman's agent has revealed the actor once turned down a movie role because he didn't want to support outdated Black stereotypes.

The Black Panther star's longtime agent Michael Greene revealed that Boseman, who passed away on 28 August after a four-year battle with colon cancer, refused to participate in the movie, which was also set to star Tessa Thompson, as it would negatively portray Black people.

"I remember him and Tessa were offered a movie, it was about two slaves, and he was like, 'I do not want to perpetuate slavery,'" Greene wrote in an emotional op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter. "It was like, 'We're not going to keep perpetuating the stereotypes,' and that's why he wanted to show men of strength and character."

Greene also detailed an incident on the set of long-running U.S. soap opera All My Children - when Boseman was fired after refusing to play up to more Black stereotypes.

"After Chad's first script, they literally said, 'Oh, here's your next script, and your mother's a crackhead and your father left.' And he goes, 'I'm not playing those images,' and he went into the writers' room, and they fired him," he recalled.

He explained that the 43-year-old actor wanted to bring light and joy to his movies and was never tempted to star in a gritty drama or bleak historical epic.

"It was always about bringing light. That's why we never did really dark movies or movies that were just people shooting everybody and perpetuating darkness," Greene continued. "He accomplished so much, and all while he was fighting the darkness, literally... Until the last couple of days of his life, he was fighting it."

Greene was one of the few people who knew about Boseman's secret cancer battle.