Almost everyone assumed Chadwick Boseman would win for Best Actor at the 2021 Oscars for his final performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but instead the award went to Anthony Hopkins in The Father, in the biggest upset of the night.
Unsurprisingly, viewers were shocked and upset by the surprise loss for Boseman, who died of colon cancer in August 2020. While a win for Boseman would have no doubt honored the late actor’s entire career, it’s worth noting that he delivers a truly exceptional performance in Ma Rainey, which was director George C. Wolfe and screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a real-life blues singer and her band in the 1920s. Boseman stars in the film as Levee, a hot-headed trumpet player who is desperate to make a name for himself in the viciously racist music world in 1927.
Viewers were initially shocked by a surprise change in order of the awards, with the traditionally saved-for-last Best Picture — given to Nomadland — instead placed third to last, followed by Best Actress, and finally Best Actor. Many in the viewing audience assumed that the Academy was banking on an emotional win for Boseman to close out the ceremony. Instead, the award was given to Hopkins… Who wasn’t even present. Instead, presenter Joaquin Pheonix accepted the award on his behalf.
Oscar viewers voiced their displeasure for the Academy’s decision on Twitter calling it “the worst ending since Game of Thrones” and “a LOST ending if I’ve ever seen one.”
Boseman kept his cancer diagnosis a secret from all but those closest to him. Glynn Turman, who plays the role of Toledo in Ma Rainey, told Decider in a previous interview, “The physicality was what was amazing — how physically committed he was to doing take after take in such a strenuous scene. He was giving it all he had.”
Boseman had won a string of Best Actor awards this season, including the Golden Globe, which was tearfully accepted by his wife, Taylor Simone Ledward.
Ledward said then, “He would say something beautiful, something inspiring, something that would amplify that little voice inside of all of us that tells us you can, that tells you to keep going, that calls you back to what you’re meant to be doing at this moment in history.”
