ACTORS pick up many a skill during their careers.

Horse-riding is a popular one, as is fake-playing musical instruments, and the occasional foray into a foreign language. Playing the lead in the new movie Get on Up, Chadwick Boseman acquired the ability to do the splits and snap back up again.

It is a skill, he acknowledges, that probably won't come in that handy in future.

"I haven't done it since we stopped, and I don't intend on doing it unless I slip and have to fall that way," he laughs.

If the movie's title has not given it away, or the dance move, Boseman is playing James Brown, aka The Godfather of Soul, aka Mr Dynamite, aka The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness. At 37, Boseman is too young to have been around for Brown's glory years, but he knew his music from later incarnations.

"To me he has always been a part of the music of my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents, but his music is sampled so much in hip hop music I'm familiar with him. He is the godfather of soul but also of hip hop."

Directed by Tate Taylor (The Help), Get on Up has an impressive musical pedigree. Brown's family gave their backing, the producer is Brian Grazer, who made another acclaimed music biopic, 8 Mile, with Eminem, and guitarist Keith Jenkins, who played with Brown from 1994-2006, was a technical adviser.

Then there is another of the film's producers, one Mick Jagger Esq. The Rolling Stones frontman first saw Brown at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in the 1960s.

"I went to see him a lot of times in different places in that part of my career," says Jagger. "He was an amazing frontman, and if that's your gig you're going to want to see the best. I watched him do the splits, and thought, 'Well, I'm not doing that,' but I'm not ashamed to say I borrowed other moves. He was brilliant. The best mover, amazing voice and amazing grooves. It all really knocked you out."

The first time Boseman spoke to Jagger it was on Skype. "It was clear that this was a labour of love for him," says Boseman. "I also knew that questions about me performing and dancing were coming from him. He would be the one to ask those questions and have the strongest opinions about that."

Jagger was not the only one keen that Boseman should look the part in every way. Boseman, too, was concerned about whether he could do Brown justice. Hitherto, the actor had been best known for playing the lead in the Jackie Robinson baseball biopic 42. Having successfully played one legend, would it be a move too far to attempt another?

"It was Tate that decided I was his James Brown," says Boseman. "This was before anybody had seen any dancing, any thing. I wanted to do a test before I took the role."

A team was drafted in. Taking care of the moves and the costume were choreographer Aakomon Jones (Pitch Perfect, Madonna, Dreamgirls) and costume designer Sharen Davis (Django Unchained, Ray). On wig duty, for that all important Brown pompadour, was Robert Stevenson.

"We shot a performance of I Can't Stand It and Cold Sweat. From that you could see me moving, and with the outfit and the hair."

With everybody happy, it was on with the shoot. Long days of dance lessons followed, much studying of archive footage of Browns' performances, and a visit to the Brown family in Georgia. Boseman did not just acquire the ability to do the splits; he also got to know about Brown the canny businessman, Brown the political operator who had meetings with presidents and who helped keep the peace after Dr King's assassination, and Brown the husband and friend, a man with his share of downs as well as ups.

"No one's trying to paint a picture of a perfect man here, because anyone who's perfect is not going to be entertaining," says Taylor. "James Brown had a crazy life, and we want people to feel it."

In life, the godfather of soul was always called "Mr Brown". So it was on set and off, with Boseman staying in character the whole time. "Especially because of how fast we shot it, it was necessary to be focused and 'in it' all the time. If you go to lunch you go to lunch as James Brown, if you are playing practical jokes you play them as James Brown."

The real practical joker on set was Taylor, though, says Boseman, particularly when it came to Boseman's co-stars Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, with whom Taylor worked on The Help. "He talks about practical jokes that he played on Octavia and Viola but I think he was scared to play one on Mr Brown," laughs Boseman.

Staying in character was the only way to go, believes Boseman. "I wanted my performance to be an interpretation, not an imitation. I think an imitation makes fun of the person at a certain level, but an interpretation gets to the spirit or essence of who the person is. That's another reason to breathe it throughout the day, so that you're not just playing at it."

As the film shows, a lot of Brown's life, especially his drive, can be explained by his childhood. Happily, Boseman had infinitely cheerier beginnings. Born in South Carolina in November 1976, his dad was a businessman and his mother a nurse. A university graduate, he did a summer exchange at Oxford to study drama. "It was one of the first times I wasn't really concentrating on directing, because that was more my focus, directing and writing, than acting at that time."

Boseman the writer-director has made two shorts, and has been a producer on four titles. He has ambitions to write and direct features, but he would not go for the triple and star in a picture as well.

"When I'm acting in something I inhabit it in a way where I wouldn't want to have to set up shots and plan, then step in the shot, out the shot. That's a bit much for me with the way I like to do things."

Boseman is about to become extremely busy, very quickly. He will next be seen in Gods of Egypt with Gerard Butler, and he has just landed the much coveted role of the superhero Black Panther in the Captain America series. He will appear in Captain America: Civil War, in 2016, and in his own film, Black Panther.

Before that, there is Get on Up. There is one other presence in the movie who can lay claim to knowing Brown better than most.

Dan Aykroyd, who plays Ben Bart, Brown's manager, worked with the performer in three films, including the cult classic The Blues Brothers. Aykroyd thinks the notorious perfectionist would be happy with how the film has turned out, and with Boseman's performance which, he says, comes close to "spiritually channelling" Brown.

Praise from a Blues Brother and a Rolling Stone, and a new incarnation to come as a superhero. There is no doubting the direction in which Boseman's star is travelling.

Get On Up opens in cinemas on November 21.