“Get on Up” star Chadwick Boseman and director Tate Taylor looked beat.
Following a July 24 premiere of the movie at an Augusta theater and after-party at the Augusta Museum of History that night, the pair came in on two wheels the following day to the St. Regis in Buckhead for a round of press interviews ahead of a red-carpet screening that night at the Atlantic Station theater.
But like the hardest-working man in show business, they shook off the proverbial cape and kept on going.
“This is what we signed up for,” Taylor said.
Boseman, also the star of the Jackie Robinson biopic “42,” which filmed partly in Atlanta, said the movie itself was a rigorous experience.
“I just danced,” he said. “I danced all the time. We shot dance numbers throughout. I was constantly moving. I had an amazing choreographer.”
“He had studied Jazzercise,” Taylor broke in.
“I didn’t study Jazzercise!” Boseman responded.
The actor not only mastered James Brown’s fancy footwork but also his complex character in the biopic about the performer who died in Atlanta in 2006. The movie highlights Brown’s musical genius as well as his various interactions with the law, financial troubles and assorted love interests.
“At the core, there’s some abandonment that informs his strengths and his weaknesses,” Boseman said. “He’s a man who has an individual spirit and is not afraid to stand up and stand out and make his own decisions. Sometimes we agree with them and sometimes we don’t.”
Discussions about a movie started before Brown’s death in 2006 and were resurrected when Mick Jagger acquired song rights for a documentary project. The Rolling Stones frontman, humorously portrayed in a key scene in “Get on Up,” thought the feature film was a good idea, too, and served as one of its producers.
When Taylor, known for “The Help,” his film adaptation of Atlanta novelist Kathryn Stockett’s book, came on board, he decided to return to Mississippi for shooting. The movie, set largely in Georgia, was filmed in Natchez and Jackson.
“When you have a town hungry for commerce and business, they roll out the red carpet,” he said, noting that the project had a smallish budget by Hollywood standards, although his partners evidently prefer he not throw around figures. He did allow that it was in the ballpark of “The Help,” which had a budget of $25 million.
Boseman and Taylor did spend some time in Augusta ahead of production, meeting with relatives including Deanna Brown Thomas and Dr. Yamma Brown, two of the late singer’s daughters.
“They’re just regular people, which let me know he was a regular person as well,” Boseman said. “They said they were happy I was doing it.”
Indeed, in a recent interview, Thomas said the family was thrilled that Boseman would portray the late Brown, and were impressed with the amount of preparation he put in, especially for the dance scenes.
“Chad had to do almost 100 splits one day,” Thomas said. “That’s a lot of working.”
Both Boseman and Taylor said they were eager for viewers to take in Brown’s life story. Most people can recall his snappy costumes and energetic performances. Lots of folks probably remember some of his off-stage antics. But maybe not everyone knows he grew up in his aunt’s Augusta brothel and had to survive by hustling at a young age, dancing on the streets for pocket change.
“I just appreciate his individual experience,” Boseman said. “I appreciate he made choices people don’t like. I’m not saying I agree but I understand it more looking at his childhood and his background. Before you judge a person, you should know the whole story. I want people to weigh and see the full picture.”
“This was a man who was impulsive, which brought good and bad,” Taylor said. “He operated on sheer instinct, which is so hard to do, but I admire that.”
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