Netflix has released the trailer for the period drama “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, which features the final performance of the late Chadwick Boseman.
Viola Davis is the “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey in the drama which is set over the course of an afternoon recording session. With Rainey locked in a battle of wills with her white manager, the musicians, including Boseman’s trumpet player Levee, take turns revealing truths about themselves.
Based on the 1984 play by August Wilson and directed by George C. Wolfe, Davis participated in a virtual conversation with the press in conjunction with the trailer’s release. The conversation was originally scheduled for August 31, but was postponed following Boseman’s death (though he was never scheduled to participate).
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His death weighed heavily on Davis, who also played his mother in “Get On Up”.
“Not to compete with Chadwick’s mother, but he was my baby,” she said, according to Deadline. “Chadwick was an artist. That is just what he was… he loved it, he demanded it in every single way. For someone so young it was incredible to watch.”
Produced by Denzel Washington, who has vowed to adapt all of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson plays for the screen in a deal for Netflix, Davis says she initially hesitated about playing the blues singer.
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“I didn’t think I could play her. I always see myself at 28,” she joked, adding that now at age 55, she is the right age to play Ma Rainey. She said it wasn’t just the character, but it was the story that really drew her in to take the role.
“It shows what Black life was like in 1924, how it was informing our relationships,” she said, alluding that the play is also one of hope. “You try to take that emptiness and fill it up with something.”
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” will be released on Netflix on Dec. 18.
