It would be damning Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther with faint praise to call it the best of the Marvel movies. Rather, it is that studio’s only film to date that has felt like it had any reason to exist beyond selling toys and pencil cases and boosting the brand. This wasn’t just a superhero movie: this was a howl of pain (and, at times, joy) which echoed far beyond the multiplexes. Central to its effectiveness was Chadwick Boseman, whose measured, inquisitive performance as T’Challa, the king who doubles as the Black Panther, helped lend the picture its warmth and humanity. The character could be flawed, bewildered, blinkered—he had to learn to balance the good of his country, Wakanda, with that of the world at large—just as the ostensible villain, played by Michael B Jordan, was often deeply, achingly sympathetic.

I met Boseman in London in February 2018 when he was in town to promote the film, and he exuded the serenity of someone who knew he was onto a winner. It would be wrong to say he was like the man on the street: you don’t wear pin-striped black trousers, gleaming white trainers and a pale pink bomber jacket twinkling with what appeared to be rhinestones if you want to pass for an ordinary Joe. But he was certainly in good spirits, laughing at me for asking what I should call him (he decided on “CB4”—a reference to the hip-hop mockumentary) and batting away the idea that he might have felt any pressure about playing so beloved a character. “You’re not thinking: ‘Don’t screw up’, exactly,” he said. “It’s more positive than that. It’s more like: ‘Seize it. Enjoy it.’” And he did.

No one needs reminding that Hollywood, and the superhero genre in particular, has scarcely been a bastion of diversity. But in Black Panther there was at last a film which not only put performers of colour in the majority but confronted thorny issues of solidarity. While other African countries were enslaved, Wakanda had thrived. Boseman enjoyed wrestling with that. “The movie asks: well, if you’ve never been colonised, then what were you doing while that was happening to the rest of Africa? You had to just be watching, right?” He also loved the idea that the picture would be a catalyst for educating young audience members. At one point, a white character played by Martin Freeman is casually referred to as a “coloniser.” Boseman appreciated such touches. “If you’re a kid and you don’t know what’s meant by ‘coloniser’, maybe you’ll be, like: ‘Hey, what is that? Let me find out…’”

It was always on the cards that the subject of Donald Trump would come up during our interview. After all, T’Challa’s announcement that “in times of trouble, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers” couldn’t have been any clearer if it had been delivered through a loudhailer outside the Oval Office. Boseman was willing to accept those resonances—“I would say it’s certainly ironic that you can point to it,” he smiled—but he refused to let Trump’s egregious outbursts dominate our conversation. When I asked how he felt about the President’s insulting remarks concerning Africa (he referred to the continent’s “shithole countries”), the storm clouds gathered briefly. “I don’t judge myself based on what he or anybody else says,” he said, suddenly sombre. “My view of Africa is based on my pursuit of it, and my connection to it, and for me the continent is glorious. The greatest resources are there. Its history and accomplishments are among the greatest in the world. What do I care what anybody has to say about it?”

No one is their best self at a press junket. Journalists are ferried in and out of rooms in quick succession, interview slots slashed at a moment’s notice, all while A-list stars struggle to remember which country they are in. So I wouldn’t claim that half an hour in a hotel room with Chadwick Boseman gave me any deep understanding of who he was as a person. He did fill those 30 minutes or so, however, with grace, humour and intelligence. He was proud of the film he had made and he was right to be. But he could also see what it might make possible for the future—not his, which turned out to be horribly foreshortened, but the young audiences who watched Black Panther and saw themselves in it.