Before Marvel, he was best known for acclaimed portrayal of the legendary Jackie Robinson in Brian Helgeland's 42 (2013), which had the highest-grossing debut for a baseball movie in Hollywood history.
He was also lavished with praise for his interpretation of soul singer James Brown in Get on Up (2014), earning inclusion among the top 10 performances of 2014 by Time magazine.
T'Challa, king and protector of the technologically advanced fictional African nation of Wakanda, has been characterized as the first black superhero, which is partly true.
You have to do the research and do the work so that when you get there it all feels like it's honest
Around 30 black characters have donned the lycra for the big screen since the early 1990s, including Marvel's Falcon (Anthony Mackie since 2014), Wesley Snipes's titular vampire hunter in Blade (1998) and Halle Berry's Kenyan princess Storm in four X-men movies.
The Wakandan royal can claim to be the first black superhero to land a standalone movie in the MCU and the first in mainstream American comics, having featured in The Fantastic Four in 1966.
'Damaging and untrue'
Boseman, who recently wrapped filming on Black Panther, believes there have been too many "damaging and untrue" portrayals of Africa in American cinema and doesn't want to add to them.
"I feel the weight of it. You can't be overly concerned in every breath you take. But you have to do the research and do the work so that when you get there it all feels like it's honest," he said.
Boseman, who pays for incognito theater visits so that he can gauge genuine reaction to his movies, has a film up next which, for once, didn't bring the pressure of having to interpret an already much-loved figure.
In noir revenge thriller Message from the King, he plays Jacob King, a South African who spends a week in Los Angeles' underbelly to hunt the killer of his estranged younger sister.
Fabrice du Welz's movie casts Boseman opposite an accomplished ensemble including Luke Evans (The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, Beauty and the Beast) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, Boogie Nights).
"It was exciting to start that process and know that nobody was really going to say, 'That's not Jacob, that's not who he is,'" Boseman jokes.
"It's not necessarily a completely blank canvas. But it is a canvas that I can do a lot with without having to worry about people's attachment to it."
Message from the King is released theatrically in France on Wednesday and on Netflix later in the year. Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, are scheduled for release in February and May next year.