Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is on Netflix today, and the streamer is wasting no time hyping up the lead performances by Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. In two Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom featurettes, Davis and Boseman are given the spotlight, with footage of the two of them behind-the-scenes shared alongside interviews with their co-stars praising them to high heaven. Watch the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom featurettes below.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Featurettes

Chadwick Boseman was “a man among men,” Denzel Washington, who produced the film based on the play of the same name by August Wilson, said in the new Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom featurette spotlighting the performances of the two leads. First up is Boseman, whose final feature film role will be in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and for which the actor is already receiving buzz for a post-humous Oscar.

The entire featurette is tinged with a little sadness, as Boseman’s co-stars all praise his talent and gush about his dedication to the role. Davis, in particular, felt a familial affection for the actor, having played his mother in Get On Up, and the actress speaks about still referring to him as her “son,” while they shot Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

In addition to Boseman, Davis is also being propped up by Netflix as an Oscar contender for Best Actress. While the featurettes feel like an unofficial start to the campaign for Davis and Boseman’s potential nominations, it is great seeing how the film came together behind the scenes, and watching how Davis brought her performance as Ma Rainey, the legendary “Mother of Blues,” together.

George C. Wolfe directs a script by Ruben Santiago-Hudson for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The film also stars Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, and Michael Potts.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is streaming on Netflix right now.

Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Academy Award® winner Viola Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio’s claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) — who has an eye for Ma’s girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry — spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives.

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