Viola Davis gives an emotional speech at Chadwick Boseman's posthumous Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony

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https://www.maximotv.com  Actress Viola Davis gives an emotional speech at the posthumous unveiling ceremony of Chadwick Boseman's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, November 20, 2025, at 6904 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Experience in Los Angeles, California, USA.  This video is available for editorial use in all media and worldwide. To ensure compliance and proper licensing of this video, please contact us at https://www.maximotv.com.  🇺🇸

Transcript

00:00Please welcome a Walk of Famer in her own right, Viola Davis!

00:07I'm introduced, I always want to say the Malcolm X quote, which is, make it plain.

00:35But I have to believe that Chadwick is still alive.

00:49I can't use the word gone or death, really, when thinking about him.

00:59You know, it's like the quote, you know, when the last person who dies who has a memory

01:05of you, that's when you'll truly be dead.

01:14My memory of Chadwick is, we did Ma Rainey's Black Bottom soon before he left us.

01:29And he was always trying to engage me on the set, always sort of telling me in like unassuming

01:39ways that I think that he understood the cap of success.

01:50But the true power and significance of transcendence.

01:56And that was usually the gist of all of our conversations of sort of what happens when

02:04you realize that you're possibly transitioning, that there's something else, right?

02:20And I would say to him, you know, Chadwick, I sort of agree with you.

02:26There is a cap to success.

02:30I haven't found my thing yet.

02:33When I'm not acting, I don't know who I am.

02:35He was like, oh no, Viola, you can't let that happen.

02:40What I do is I carry my djembe drum everywhere I go.

02:44I don't care if it gets in the way of luggage, I don't care if, you know, I have to argue with

02:50the airline students of where I'm going to put it.

02:54I need my drum.

03:00And you know, that djembe drum is a talking drum, y'all.

03:05And he would play it on the set.

03:08You could hear it in his trailer.

03:11It was more than just a sound.

03:16It was more than just music.

03:20I mean, it resounded through the entire sound stage.

03:25And he would play it fervently.

03:33Chadwick, you channeled the divine.

03:35You were a conduit, a source of connectiveness that every single human being that's faced who

03:51is on this earth is searching for, trying to connect to each other, trying to connect to our

04:01art, trying to know, like the Cherokee birth blessing, may we live long enough to understand

04:09why we were born.

04:13That was Chadwick.

04:15More than just an actor who you can observe on screen doing wonderful work.

04:21It was work that reminded us that we are less alone.

04:26It's best to use all of life.

04:39Leave death nothing but the dregs.

04:42Nothing but a burnt out castle.

04:46And Chadwick was a castle.

04:48Chadwick was a mighty, mighty elixir that sort of stirred up that alchemy that we're all

05:00in search of, which is meaning.

05:06I celebrate him today.

05:08And I say to him, I hope all the angels in heaven just sang him to a beautiful rest.

05:22And I thank him for what he left behind in me, which is a burning amber that always guides

05:33me to a higher meaning of my work and my purpose.

05:41This star, as beautiful as it is on the walk of fame, shines a whole lot less brighter than

05:50Chadwick is in heaven.

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