In an interview with Rolling Stone, Chadwick Boseman revealed part of his arts education was sponsored by none other than Phylicia Rashad and Denzel Washington, with Rashad as his mentor while he studied at Howard University.

“She would do a play in D.C. and you’d go see it, and she’d drive you home and talk to you, ‘How you eating? You look too skinny. You need a pork chop.’” Boseman said of the ever-so gracious Cosby Show actress. “We were just trying to aspire to her excellence.”

Rashad was determined to have her students study at Oxford, and reached out to her peers for assistance.

“She pushed for us,” Boseman said. “She essentially got some celebrity friends to pay for us to go.”

One of those Hollywood friends was Washington. The actor said he received a letter from the two-time Oscar-winning actor, whom Rashad contacted, to be his benefactor for the trip.

“Denzel paid for me,” Boseman said. “I’m sure he has no idea. It was random. I couldn’t wait to write my thank-you letter! I’ve been waiting to meet him, so I can tell him.”

Well, Boseman recently revealed on The Tonight Show that he was able to thank the Oscar-winner at the New York premiere of Black Panther. 

“I met him, before the article came out,” he said. “So, I actually lived up to what I originally wanted to do. It was amazing.”