'42' Jackie Robinson Movie: Chadwick Boseman Opens Up On Auditioning For The Role (VIDEO)

As opening day for the 2013 season of Major League Baseball steadily approaches, the life story of the league’s most influential figure, Jackie Robinson, is set to hit the silver screen.

On April 12, three days before the celebration of “Jackie Robinson Day,” fans can catch actor-playwright Chadwick Boseman as he portrays the baseball legend in “42.”

Boseman recently opened up to Access Hollywood correspondent, Shaun Robinson, as he explained what it was like auditioning to play the groundbreaking athlete.

“This is like playing Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, it’s a no-brainer that you would want to do it,” he admitted. “The audition process, it wasn’t a long process necessarily. I actually met Brian Helgeland and he says that he knew right away…but I didn’t necessarily know that. I left that first meeting, I was directing a play in New York and I didn’t really think about it.”

“I thought it was a great audition, but you have a lot of great auditions and you don’t get it. But I was actually watching the World Series, the Cardinals were celebrating after the 9th inning and I was looking at the screen I said, “I’m going to get this role.”

Check out Chadwick Boseman’s interview in its entirety in the clip above.

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