Ryan Coogler Pens Moving Tribute to Chadwick Boseman: 'Chad Was an Anomaly'

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler shared an emotional letter to Chadwick Boseman on Sunday.

In the tribute, Coogler reveals that he “wasn’t privy to the details of the actor’s illness.” He continued, “After his family released their statement, I realized that he was living with his illness the entire time I knew him.” Coogler added, “Because he was a caretaker, a leader, and a man of faith, dignity and pride, he shielded his collaborators from his suffering. He lived a beautiful life. And he made great art. Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days.”

Coogler looks back on how he first met the actor, who played Black Panther for the first time in Captain America: Civil War—and then, how they met again when Coogler was deciding whether or not to take the job of directing the Black Panther film. He was inspired by Boseman choosing to make the African language of Xhosa his character, T’Challa’s native tongue, which he learned on the spot. Coogler also shares his first meeting with Boseman, when the actor slipped into a sitdown for the director’s junket of Creed.

“I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly. He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying," Coogler wrote. "But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that seen much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time.”

The director talks about how he’s crushed from the loss, briefly discussing his work on the Black Panther sequel. “I spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say, that we weren’t destined to see," he wrote.

Boseman passed away on Friday from colon cancer, a diagnosis he had lived with for four years. The 43-year-old had never publicly discussed his illness.

Read Coogler’s tribute in-full below.