Chadwick Boseman plays another iconic American figure in James Brown biopic 'Get On Up'

Before taking the role of the Godfather of Soul, the actor played baseball legend Jackie Robinson in '42'

 For a long time, it seemed James Brown — the man known to millions of fans as “Mr. Dynamite” — was too explosive for the big screen.

In the last 10 years of Brown’s life, producers tried to get his larger-than-life story to fit into a movie. They couldn’t get the right script, director or actor in place. When Brown died on Christmas Day 2006, things got even tougher.

But on Friday, the bio-pic “Get On Up” hits theaters with Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul — and even that was hard to pull off. Boseman, who played Jackie Robinson in last year’s “42,” wasn’t ready to take on yet another iconic figure.

“I didn’t want to do it at first,” Boseman, 32, tells the Daily News. “After I did ‘42,’ I was offered every biopic in the book — from Muhammad Ali to Sugar Ray Robinson to Jimi Hendrix.

 “I didn’t know if I was ready to be the Godfather of Biopics.”

“Get On Up,” directed by Tate Taylor (“The Help”), co-stars Nelsan Ellis (“True Blood”) as Bobby Byrd, who founded Brown’s backup band, the Famous Flames; Viola Davis as Brown’s mother; Octavia Spencer as his influential Aunt Honey, and Dan Aykroyd as Ben Bart, Brown’s longtime manager.

Boseman — who, like Brown, was born in South Carolina — says the singer was a tremendous influence on everyone from his part of the country, and that taking on the role presented a level of responsibility he hadn’t had since, well, “42.”


 “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do a movie about James Brown,” he says. “I just realize that these guys mean so much to so many people. So you better do it right. Then I read this script and I knew it was going to do the man justice.”

Brown was a legend with a multitude of talents, credits and crazy real-life episodes on his hefty resume. Growing up in poverty and then being raised by his Aunt Honey in an Augusta bordello, Brown drove himself to become one of the most influential forces in the 1950s and ’60s music business. He was a crucial, guiding voice bridging black and white audiences in the years before, during and after the civil rights era.

“There’s a book called ‘The Mis-Education of the Negro’ that explains how black men of that era were educated to believe they had limitations,” Boseman says. “James had no education, no boundaries. He believed he had no limitations and truly believed he could break any rule he wanted to achieve success... and that’s exactly what he did.”


 Brown took over the promotions of his own shows, and broke through the barriers of success on the so-called Chitlin’ Circuit — venues in the Eastern, Southern and upper Midwest areas of the U.S. that were acceptable for African-American entertainers to perform in times of segregation.

“He knew he had to cross over to achieve this mythic status — and he did it,” Boseman says.

To prepare, the actor worked with choreographer Aakomon Jones to perfect the James Brown moves. He even sings in some scenes to provide realistic continuity. (Brown’s music is heard in the movie, as the film was done with the blessing of the singer’s estate.)


 “I had to answer to the man’s family,” he says. “They were very concerned that we get it right. It made me work that much harder.”

There are the moments in the film that touch on Brown’s difficulties — his early jail time where he met Byrd, and late-in-life episodes of drug and spousal abuse. The film’s opening scene shows Brown brandishing firearms and alarming people in a Georgia office building he owned.

“When I came into this, I was intimidated by all the crazy things I heard about the man,” Boseman says. “Now, I don’t think he was nuts. You learn that he grew up in a house where his parents actually shot at one another, and you begin to understand how he distrusted any relationship, how he was driven to make it on his own, and you begin to understand, it’s all part of who he was.

“I only (used to know) what was projected in the public. My perspective of him now is that I get the ‘gamesmanship’ in his actions.