Chadwick Boseman is showing us the ropes of how to effectively grind. The 40-year-old actor is not just making headlines for his highly anticipated reprisal of the role of Black Panther in the franchise’s first standalone film. In fact, Chadwick is also giving love to the film roles that made him by adding another important black figure to his impressive and ever-growing list of credentials.
The impressive actor is no stranger to real-life portrayals. He has previously portrayed James Brown in the biopic Get On Up and Jackie Robinson in the movie 42. Now, the actor is putting himself in Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s shoes in the forthcoming film Marshall.
The film depicts Marshall’s life before his groundbreaking win on the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court, declaring the separation of public schools by race was unconstitutional. The movie takes a surprise turn in not focusing on that pivotal aspect of Marshall’s career (him becoming the first African-American Supreme Court Justice), and instead will portray Marshall as a young, arrogant hotshot who gets called by the NAACP to defend Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown). Spell is a black chauffeur that gets accused of sexually assaulting a white socialite (Kate Hudson).
Although Marshall walks into the court highly qualified, he knows he will need someone the all-white jury can connect with. He decides to request attorney Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) to act as his first chair. Having a white attorney on his side would help facilitate getting a fair opportunity in court and would allow benefit of the doubt to enter the courtroom since the jurors see someone that looks like them and not just Marshall.
The trailer looks great and gives us a taste of the journey that Marshall and Friedman had to endure as they set out to prove their client’s innocence. The two men encounter emotional hurdles, physical attacks, threats, and racism as they represent Spell and stand up for what’s right. “The only way to get through a bigot’s door is to break it down,” Boseman as Marshall says in the trailer.
Marshall is slated to hit theaters this October. Watch the trailer for the film below.