Chadwick Boseman’s Widow Accepts Award in His Honor with Moving Tribute at Gotham Awards

Chadwick Boseman was honored with a heartfelt and emotional tribute by his widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, during the 2021 Gotham Awards on Monday night.

A mostly virtual event, Boseman was nominated for Best Actor for his final film performance in the 1920’s-set “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” alongside co-star Viola Davis’ Best Actress nomination.

While neither took home those awards, they were nevertheless both honored on the night, taking home the Actor Tribute and Actress Tribute awards, respectively. These serve as a lifetime achievement award, celebrating not just the latest work, but the artist’s entire filmography.

Nicole Beharie won Best Actress for her work in “Miss Juneteenth,” while it was Riz Ahmed’s performance in “Sound of Metal” that elevated him to the top position. Nevertheless, Ahmed took a moment during his own acceptance speech to praise Boseman’s work.

Taking the stage to honor her late husband, Ledward lauded his honesty and integrity. “As an artist, an actor, and a person, Chad made a practice of telling the truth,” she said. “He is the most honest person I’ve ever met.”

This is because, according to Ledward, he wasn’t passive in his honesty. “He didn’t just stop at speaking the truth, he actively searched for it,” she said. “In himself, in those around him and in the moment.”

“The truth can be a very easy thing for the self to avoid, but if one does not live in truth, then it’s impossible to live in line with a divine purpose for your life,” she continued. “And so, it became how he lived his life, day in, day out. Imperfect, but determined.”

As a result of the way he lived his life, Ledward said that her husband was able to “be totally present in his own life and the lives of the people he became.”

In fact, she said he saw himself as a “vessel to be poured into,” when it came to his acting work, fully immersing himself in the lives he portrayed, whether they be real people like James Brown, Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson, or fictional characters like Wakanda’s King T’Challa or trumpeter Levee Green.

“He developed his understanding of what it meant to be the one, the none and the all,” said Ledwell. “He realized when one is able to recognize that their strength does not come from themself, they rarely mess up. That’s what he was doing when he was acting; not merely telling a story or reading lines off a page, but modeling for us a path of true fulfillment.”

“May we not let his conviction be in vain,” she added. “May our spirits be fertile soil for God’s wisdom to fall upon.”

You can check out the full list of winners below:

BEST FEATURE

The Assistant

First Cow

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

WINNER: Nomadland

Relic

BEST DOCUMENTARY

76 Days

City Hall

Our Time Machine

WINNER (tie): A Thousand Cuts

WINNER (tie): Time

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Bacurau

Beanpole

Cuties (Mignonnes)

WINNER: Identifying Features

Martin Eden

Wolfwalkers

BINGHAM RAY BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR AWARD

Radha Blank, The Forty-Year-Old Version

Channing Godfrey Peoples, Miss Juneteenth

Alex Thompson, Saint Frances

Carlo Mirabella-Davis, Swallow

WINNER: Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night

BEST SCREENPLAY

Bad Education, Mike Makowsky

First Cow, Jon Raymond, Kelly Reichardt

WINNER (tie): The Forty-Year-Old Version, Radha Blank

WINNER (tie): Fourteen, Dan Sallitt

The Vast of Night, James Montague, Craig Sanger

BEST ACTOR

WINNER: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal

Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Jude Law in The Nest

John Magaro, First Cow

Jesse Plemons, I’m Thinking of Ending Things

BEST ACTRESS

WINNER: Nicole Beharie, Miss Juneteenth

Jessie Buckley, I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

Carrie Coon, The Nest

Frances McDormand, Nomadland

BREAKTHROUGH ACTOR

Jasmine Batchelor, The Surrogate

WINNER: Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami…

Sidney Flanigan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Orion Lee, First Cow

Kelly O’Sullivan, Saint Frances

BREAKTHROUGH SERIES – LONG FORMAT

The Great

Immigration Nation

P-Valley

Unorthodox

WINNER: Watchmen

BREAKTHROUGH SERIES – SHORT FORMAT

Betty

Dave

WINNER: I May Destroy You

Taste the Nation

Work in Progress

ACTRESS TRIBUTE

Viola Davis

ACTOR TRIBUTE

Chadwick Boseman

ENSEMBLE TRIBUTE

The cast of The Trial of the Chicago 7: Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Alex Sharp, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Caitlin Fitzgerald, Alice Kremelberg, and Ben Shenkman.

DIRECTOR’S TRIBUTE

Steve McQueen

INDUSTRY TRIBUTE

Ryan Murphy

MADE IN N.Y. AWARD

Jeffrey Wright

GOTHAM AUDIENCE AWARD

Nomadland

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