“If you see the world unbalanced, be a crusader that pushes heavily on the seesaw of the mind,” the late actor’s widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, said while accepting his award. “That’s a quote by Chadwick Boseman. Thank you.”

Boseman was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom alongside Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Gary Oldman (Mank) and Steven Yeun (Minari). He was also up for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Da 5 Bloods against Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah), Jared Leto (The Little Things) and Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami). Both of the late actor’s films earned nods for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

The South Carolina native previously won his first SAG Award in January 2019 for Black Panther. He and his costars, including Angela Bassett, Sterling K. Brown, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan and Kaluuya, earned Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

“We know what it’s like to be told there’s not a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on,” Boseman said on behalf of the cast in their acceptance speech at the time. “We know what it’s like to be the tail, but not the head. We know what it’s like to be beneath, but not above. And that is what we went to work with every day. Because we knew not that we would be around during awards season or that it would make a billion dollars, but we knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world — that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing. That we could create a world that exemplified a world that we wanted to see.”

The Avengers: Endgame star died in August 2020 after privately battling colon cancer for four years. He was 43.

Boseman’s widow, 30, accepted the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama on his behalf in February for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

“He would thank God. He would thank his parents. He would thank his ancestors,” Ledward, 30, said as she broke down in tears. “He would say something beautiful, something inspiring, something that amplifies that little voice inside of all of us. I don’t have his words, but we have to take all the moments to celebrate those we love.”

Boseman could become the third actor ever to win a posthumous Academy Award on Sunday, April 25, after Peter Finch (Network) and Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight). He is nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Erin Crabtree