Black Panther: Denzel Washington Jokingly Asked Chadwick Boseman for Money at Premiere

12/19/2021 12:08 pm EST

After Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away last year, many actors shared stories and paid tribute to him. One such actor was Denzel Washington, who actually played a huge role in Boseman's career. Washington famously helped pay for the Marvel hero's education at Oxford. During a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Washington joked about going to the Black Panther premiere and asking Boseman for his money back. 

"Phylicia Rashad was helping kids and she called different people. She called me and I said, 'Yeah, I'll sponsor whoever,' and he called to thank me. That's how I found out it was him. You're sponsoring this kid, this Chadwick Boseman guy. And I said, 'Yeah, OK Chad, I want my money back.' So I went to the premiere for Black Panther here in New York. And I saw Ryan Coogler and Chad. He said, 'Oh I just wanted to thank you for paying.' I said, 'Yeah, that's why I'm here. I'm not here to see the movie. I like the movie, Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, but where's my money?,'" Washington joked. 

Before Boseman's death, he did get the opportunity to work with Washington. The veteran actor was a producer on the Netflix film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which earned Boseman a posthumous Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards earlier this year.

Since his unexpected passing, there have been many tributes to Boseman, including a dedication at the end of an episode of the animated series Marvel's What If...?, which featured the star portraying T'Challa for the last time.

"We didn't know it would be his final performance obviously," Kevin Feige recently told Variety on the red carpet for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings when asked about Boseman's role in What If. "He came in numerous times, was so gung ho about it, was so excited about it... He read the episode that airs 24 hours from now and then came back and said, 'I really love this version of T'Challa.' And we had a conversation after that with Ryan [Coogler] about 'How do we get some of this voice,' none of the storyline, but just some of that voice into Panther 2. Now of course it's remarkably sad and bittersweet, but I'm very happy we have it and I'm very happy he did it for us. I'm excited for the fans to see that as well."

Black Panther is currently streaming on Disney+.

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