Chatting with Boseman about the epic scene that caused me to light up during an advanced screening, he offered more context on why it matters. “The scene is important in the movie because you need to see what [Marshall is] giving up,” he explained. “You need to see that he’s not running around in Oklahoma to Birmingham to Bridgeport doing this because he doesn’t have a life. He actually has one of the coolest lives you could possibly imagine.” Hurston and Hughes were staples of the Harlem Renaissance. Their writings on the Black experience were as well-received and championed as contemporary projects like Issa Rae’s Insecure and Donald Glover’s Atlanta. Boseman notes that Marshall made good friends with “some of the coolest people and artists in the world.” He sacrifices this to provide legal defence for Black people in parts of the country where it was downright dangerous to do so.