The 'Black Panther' star opens up about the funding for his prestigious education.
He's become a phenomenon with the recent release of Marvel's 'Black Panther' movie, but Chadwick Boseman has had the training to ensure that he would succeed in his career from the very beginning. Apparently, some of that training was funded by fellow Hollywood star Denzel Washington.
Chadwick Boseman at the premiere for 'Black Panther'
The 40-year-old opened up about how his hero paid for him to attend a prestigious summer exchange program at Oxford University in the UK, after one of his acting teachers - Phylicia Rashad - encouraged some of her pals to fund her acting class at Howard University in Washington, DC.
'Phylicia Rashad basically taught a class once a week while we were at Howard and then she wanted us to do this exchange', Chadwick explained on Jimmy Fallon. 'I didn't have money to pay for this so she got a few of her friends together and they paid for us to go.'
'When I came back, I got a beneficiary letter and it said: 'Denzel Washington paid for you'. I was like, 'What?!'
Chadwick initially spoke about the Oxford Mid-Summer Program (set up by the British American Drama Academy) in an interview with Rolling Stone, though he wouldn't say who his beneficiary was because he hadn't met him yet. He did, however, insist that it wasn't Phylicia's 'The Cosby Show' co-star Bill Cosby.
He says he's been holding in this secret for his entire career. 'I never wanted to ever say that until I met him', he told Jimmy. 'Just before the movie came out we did the New York premiere, he came and I met him before the article came out.'
'I said, 'I gotta tell you something, you paid for me to go to school'. He said, 'Oh, so that's why I'm here - you owe me money!''
More: Watch the trailer for 'Black Panther'
He didn't reveal who else was in his acting class or whether he knew which of her other celebrity friends donated the funds for the exchange trip, but we're guessing some of his fellow Howard graduates are also sitting on an incredible secret.
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