Denzel Washington: Acting worked out very well for Chadwick Boseman

Denzel Washington – who paid for Chadwick Boseman to study acting in the UK – has said it “worked out very well for him”.

Black Panther star Boseman revealed in 2018 that double Oscar winner Washington had paid his fees for an acting course in Oxford almost 20 years previously.

Boseman was at university in the US when he attended a summer course at the British American Drama Academy (Bada) in the UK.

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show on Friday about paying for Boseman’s tuition fees, Washington, 67, said: “When I found out it was him, he wasn’t known yet, but it obviously worked out very well for him and he had great success and was a brilliant actor.

“It was a very sad end to his life – he was a brave, talented young man.”

Boseman went on to play the lead role in Marvel’s ground-breaking superhero blockbuster Black Panther and earned posthumous acclaim for his final role in the Netflix drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

The star died aged 43 in August 2020 following a private four-year battle with colon cancer.

Washington also told Norton about his upcoming role as the murderous general in the film adaptation of Macbeth, alongside his fellow multiple Oscar winner Frances McDormand, 64, who plays his scheming wife.

Talking about playing an older Macbeth, he said: “It actually helped because the clock was literally ticking, we are old, and time is running out – we were expecting to get the crown and we take it.

“It’s hard to adlib Shakespeare, which is part of the challenge and the fun of it.”

The Tragedy Of Macbeth is directed by Joel Coen and it is the first film directed by one of the Coen brothers without the other’s involvement.

The film, which is shot in black and white, also stars The Walking Dead’s Corey Hawkins as Macduff, The Queen’s Gambit’s Moses Ingram as Lady Macduff and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson as King Duncan.

The Graham Norton Show is on BBC One on Friday at 10.35pm.