‘Da 5 Bloods’ Star Clarke Peters Admits to Misjudging Chadwick Boseman’s ‘Precious’ Behavior on Set

Da 5 Bloods star Clarke Peters delivered his own emotional tribute to his co-star Chadwick Boseman earlier this week, admitting he regretted misjudging the Black Panther star. Boseman had a supporting role in Spike Lee‘s Vietnam War epic as the deceased Stormin’ Norman, who was held up as a hero by his fellow soldiers, played by Peters, Jonathan Majors, Delroy Lindo, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. The film was Boseman’s last released movie before his death on Friday, following a battle with colon cancer.

“I have to say with a little bit of regret that I probably wasn’t the most altruistic in that environment, but hindsight teaches us a lot of things,” Peters explained during an appearance on Good Morning Britain. Peters said when his wife asked him what Boseman was like, he was critical. “I think he’s a little bit precious,” he told his wife. Boseman was “surrounded by people who are fawning over him,” Peters recalled. “He has a Chinese practitioner, who is massaging his back when he walks off-set. He has a makeup lady massaging his feet. His girlfriend is there holding his hand.”

Peters thought the success of Black Panther “went to his head,” but now Peters regrets feeling that way about Boseman. “I regret even having those thoughts because they were really looking after him,” Peters said through tears. Now that he knows what Boseman was going through while filming Da 5 Bloods, Peters said Stormin’ Norman was the perfect role. “Chadwick’s role is the one that he played in life. He plays the hero,” Peters said, via Entertainment Tonight. “He plays the one who grounds us. He plays the man who spurred us to go on knowing that we would get to the end and that we would all get home.”

Peters is best known for playing Det. Lester Feamon in The Wire and Albert Lambreaux in Treme. One of Boseman’s final tweets was a selfie with Peters. “The beauties of filming. Always wanted to be Wired with this guy,” Boseman wrote on June 26.

Boseman died on Friday at 43 following a four-year battle with colon cancer, which he never spoke about publicly. His family said he made many of his last films while recovering from surgeries and chemotherapy treatments. His final film, a Netflix adaptation of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, will be released later this year.