Chadwick Boseman: Black Panther star visited children suffering from cancer as he privately battled disease

Chadwick Boseman broke down while discussing the importance of Black Panther for two boys with terminal cancer in 2018 during his own private battle with the disease.

Tributes have poured in for the actor following his death aged 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer.

Boseman kept his cancer diagnosis private and he filmed some much-loved roles “during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy”, his family said in a statement.

A video has resurfaced of an interview Boseman carried out in, the same year he received his diagnosis.

“There are two little kids, who recently passed from cancer, and throughout our filming, I was communicating with them, knowing that they were both terminal,” he said in the Sirius FM interview.

“What they said to me, and their parents said, is ‘They’re trying to hold on, until this movie comes’.

“To a certain degree, you hear them say that and you’re like, ‘I’ve got to get up and go to work, I’ve got to learn these lines, I’ve got to work on this accent…’

“To a certain degree it’s a humbling experience because you’re like, ‘This can’t mean that much to them’.

“But seeing how the world has taken us on, seeing how the movement has taken on a life of its own, I realised that they anticipated something great.

“I think back now to (being) a kid and just waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for my birthday to come, waiting for a toy that I was going to get a chance to experience, or a video game.

“I did live a life waiting for those moments and so it put me back in the mind of being a kid, just to experience those two little boys’ anticipation of this movie.”

The Hollywood star broke down in the interview, recorded before the film’s release.

“When I found out that they (died)” he said, in tears and unable to finish, “it means a lot.”

Boseman also went to see young patients at a US hospital treating childhood cancers and paediatric diseases, taking them toys.

In one picture, posted on Twitter in 2018, he helped a girl celebrate her birthday.

St Jude Children’s Research Hospital paid tribute to “our friend Chadwick Boseman”, saying it was “deeply saddened” to hear of his death.

A statement on Twitter added: “Two years ago, Chadwick visited the St Jude campus and brought with him not only toys for our patients but also joy, courage and inspiration.

“Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.”

One social media user wrote:

"Since 2016 he had colon cancer and kept it to himself and his family. What a legend," said one social media user.

"Embodies what it is to be a true superhero. Kept his own struggles to keep on making movies and doing what he loved. Respect to the man."

The US actor, who studied at Oxford's British American Drama Academy, had been known for playing real-life figures, including professional baseball player Jackie Robinson in 2013 biopic 42 and James Brown in 2014’s Get On Up, before he landed the Marvel role which made him a superstar.

He first played Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, before the character headlined a hugely successful blockbuster in 2018.

Black Panther was a hit with critics who praised its diversity. The film grossed over $1.3 billion at the global box office, as well as earning a best picture nomination at the Academy Awards.

In June he starred in Spike Lee’s searing drama Da 5 Bloods, playing a Vietnam soldier.

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Tributes paid to Black Panther star after death aged 43