The late Chadwick Boseman won Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance at the Creative Arts Emmys for his final performance as T’Challa in the Disney+ animated series “What If…?”
In his final performance before dying of colon cancer in 2020, Boseman recast his “Black Panther” character as Star Lord T’Challa. Boseman was one of three actors this year to receive posthumous Emmy nominations, joining Norm MacDonald and Jessica Walter, who was nominated for “Archer” in the same category as Boseman and is the only performer to receive two posthumous Emmy nominations (she was nominated for “Archer” last year after passing away).
“When I found out Chadwick had been nominated for this award, I started thinking about everything that was going on when he was recording it, what was going on in the world and what was going on in our world, and being in such awe of his commitment and dedication,” Boseman’s widow Taylor Simone Ledward said as she accepted the award. “What a beautifully-aligned moment it is, that one of the last things he would work on would be not only revisiting a character that was so important to him in his career and to the world, but also an exploration of something new, diving into a new potential future.”
“Especially with everything he said about the purpose and discovering why you’re here on the planet right now, and how you can’t understand your purpose unless you’re willing to ask, ‘What if?'” Unless you’re willing to accept the possibility that the universe is conspiring in your favor. ‘But what if it’s me?’ “I appreciate it,” Ledward said. There have been 26 posthumous Emmy nominations, with five winners: Boseman, Alice Pearce (comedy supporting actress, “Bewitched,” 1966); David Burns (supporting actor in the TV movie, “The Price,” 1971), Diana Hyland (supporting actress in the TV movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” 1977), and Raul Julia (lead actor in a TV movie, “The Burning Season,” 1995).
(From “Bewitched,” by Marion Lorne.) Ingrid Bergman, for “A Woman Called Golda,” and Audrey Hepburn, for “Gardens of the World With Audrey Hepburn,” both won Emmys after their deaths, but were still alive when nominated.). This year’s competition for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance was fierce: in addition to Walter, Boseman defeated Julie Andrews (“Bridgerton”), F. Murray Abraham (“Moon Knight”), Stanley Tucci (“Central Park”), Jeffrey Wright (“What If…?”) and Maya Rudolph (“Big Mouth”), who won in 2021 and 2020, respectively.
In 2021, Boseman was nominated for a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” In “The Father,” he was defeated by Anthony Hopkins.