Michael B. Jordan Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

What's up GQ?

It's Michael B. Jordan, and these are my iconic characters.

[upbeat music]

Well, look at 'em.

They still bind it though.

Yeah, they bind twice as much

and only getting half as high.

Hmm. Yeah, what was that?

Hmm?

Castle can't move like that.

Yo, Castle move up and down a sideways like.

Nah, we ain't playing that.

Man, look at the board, we're playing Checkers.

Checkers? Yeah, Checkers.

Yo, why y'all playing checkers on the chess set?

I played Wallace on The Wire.

I was maybe 15 at the time

coming off of this movie Hardball.

I had auditioned for Alexa Fogel in New York,

and I originally auditioned for a Bodie

and they brought me in for like two or three callbacks

and they basically said, Look, you're too young

to play this role, this character.

But they brought me back in to play, to audition for Wallace

and I ended up reading for Wallace that day.

And I ended up booking the roll.

So that's how I got cast in The Wire.

[gun clicks]

Cast members were dropping like flies from week to week.

At some point you just like skim through the script

just to make sure your name, you know what I'm saying,

was still at the end of the end of the script

like you made it through the whole episode.

And I remember getting a script

and I was just reading through

and I just saw that he got killed

and ah, man, I was devastated, you know what I'm saying?

And then you get like a, the infamous knock

from David Simon on your trailer door.

And he rolled up in there and was like,

he basically said, We love you.

Everybody loves you.

The audience loves you,

which is why we gotta kill you.

And that's pretty much what he told me.

At the time, that was the longest I've ever worked

on a show with the same people.

So it became a family, the rest of the cast

were family and the crew.

I was 15 years old.

You like, oh man, like, what do I do now?

What do I, what's next?

And I really, I was really, really sad at that time.

I think it was incredible.

The Wire opened up so many doors for me.

I think at the time when the show was coming on,

when it was on air, you know, it wasn't as popular.

And every season, I think the first two or three seasons,

it was supposed to get canceled.

And then finally, I think after season three,

they read up for like four and five.

And then that show didn't even really get crazy recognition

until I was already off the show.

But when I would go audition for things, casting directors

and executives and producers and things of that nature,

that was one of their favorite shows.

So it definitely showed me a lot of love in future projects.

And yeah, it definitely paved the way for me big time.

I would love to see that just remain without a reboot,

without a recast, any of that stuff.

Just leave it where it is because I mean,

maybe I'm biased 'cause I'm part of it,

you know what I'm saying?

I don't wanna see The Wire rebooted at all.

[upbeat music]

Hey, you know about my karate, right?

Man, you mean karate?

Nah, it's karate.

I learned from my cousin who's in Japan [indistinct].

Lightning Creek.

This is a tiger.

No man can defend himself from the fury of a world train.

Karate Tiger man.

Yeah dre, the Tiger, okay.

I'm playing Jamal in Hardball.

You know, that was my first like, major movie.

I had to travel to you know,

and I lived in a different place.

I was in Chicago.

Brian Robbins was the director of that,

and Keanu was awesome.

He was a great role model.

He gave a lot of advice and wisdom.

I remember one time he took us all out to dinner

and I guess he had just had finished shooting The Matrix,

but he had brought Laurence Fishburne with him to dinner,

and got a chance for all of us to meet him

and ask questions and talk to him,

which was extremely generous

and thoughtful for Keanu to even like, put that together.

But I remember that making a big, bigimpact on me

when I was young.

Pitch the ball.

You wanna hit me? Oh, shit.

I've seen Keanu out a few times over the years,

and every time he sees me he say, Hey, what's up Mike?

You know, it's always a lot of love.

He always tells me that he is proud of me

and proud of the things that I've done

up until this point and always encourages me

to keep going and do more.

So he's one of those special guys

that I'm glad I got a chance to know

when I was super young.

And yeah, that was just the beginning for me

that kind of...

Another one of those projects that kind of kicked me off

and put me in the right direction.

Yeah, I mean, that's where I met one of my best friends

Sterling Brim, Steelo.

And he was one of the kids on the baseball team,

one of the local kids that got casted

as the rest of the Kekambas.

And it, you know, it started off as competition.

You know what I'm saying?

It was like, and we all had afros at the time.

He had a crazy fro, you know what I'm saying?

It was like, whose hair was longer?

Like everything was a competition, you know,

who was the better hooper, video games, all that stuff.

So that was like one of my earlier friendships,

you know what I'm saying?

That kind of lasted the test of time.

And you know, we still best friends to this day.

[upbeat music]

Jumping rope three rounds on each of the bags.

When you get to the heavy bag,

just don't keep throwing your hands 'cause you can hurt 'em.

It's also about using your legs, right?

And then five rounds of shadow.

OW W, Boxing.

Boxing, yep.

And that's it.

I played Adonis Creed and Creed.

You know, me and Ryan, we were getting ready

to start rehearsals for Fruitvale Station.

We didn't even shoot a frame yet.

And he pitched me the idea for Apollo Creeds son,

you know, a spinoff.

No as take, I was like, Yeah, cool, let's do it.

Like, let's go.

Like, it was that simple.

I didn't even, I didn't think about it much at all.

And I had already had a great feeling

about Coog in general, you know?

'Cause just as this process and when we first met,

it was just like brothers linking up, you know?

So it was...

It felt right.

And, you know, as a director, having somebody

for the first time in my career

really like champion me through,

that really believed in me and believed what I could do.

It was like, All right, cool, we're gonna shoot Fruitvale

and then right after that we're gonna shoot Creed.

And it was like, All right, let's do it.

So I didn't even really think about any of the other,

you know, I guess baggage or things that carry on

from previous movies or franchises.

I looked at it as an opportunity to kind of start

something new and do something different.

First one was like an origin story for Adonis,

you know, the second one was a continuation of that.

You know, he had a lot of daddy issues,

you know what I'm saying?

He had a lot of issues.

He was working through trying to figure out

kind of who he was and what that meant in the shadow

of his father Apollo.

And as he kind of started to have his own family,

I thought it was important in the third movie,

the third installment to like really singularly focus

on Adonis and his family but the franchise stand

on his two feet.

At the time that was probably

the closest character that was to myself.

Whether it be the success, the...

All the things that come with success,

that childhood trauma that might be lingering,

things of that nature, things he needed to work through,

needed to talk through, he needed to face himself.

So I felt like I was the only person

that can kind of tell that story.

[Announcer] His name is Adonis Creed.

Before I did it, I think I was anxious,

a little nervous of how it was gonna go.

You know, like, what was the process?

Who's yelling action?

Who's yelling cut, I'm in the scene.

Like little basic stupid stuff like that.

After the first day, it felt very natural, you know?

It felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

And it was a lot of fun, honestly.

It was a lot of fun.

You know, the fights was something

that I kind of been imagining for a long time, you know?

So that was the one part of the movie

that I wasn't really nervous about.

I had a pretty clear vision on what I wanted to do

with that, and how I wanted to incorporate

my love of anime into that.

You know, usually in anime, when you got two characters

that are like fighting to the death,

inside themselves, they're having a very quiet conversation.

They're having a very emotional one

and it usually takes place in like a void, you know?

It's either all black or all white

or just void of anything where these two characters

kind of exist and they could kind of communicate.

And the two characters between Adonis and Damien,

they wouldn't be able to talk about their issues

as characters, so they had to go to this void

in order to kind of like,

you know, to figure things out.

And it was through, you know, through fighting.

You know, our movie Creed 3 was a quadrilingual,

quadrilingual film is you had English, Spanish,

ASL and then fighting would be our fourth language,

you know?

So, they fought through,

they communicated through their fists.

And that's why the anime element

kind of came into the mix.

And the void exists in so many different anime,

when people were watching it, I wanted them to associate

that to their memories

and what their experiences were with the void.

You know, it could be Naruto,

it could have been Dragon Ball Z, it could be,

you know, Jujutsu Kaisen.

It could be so many different.

It's in the fabric of what anime is.

So if you're an anime lover, you would be like,

Oh, I remember that from X, Y, and Z.

Jonathan had like a passion

and the energy, like when he walked on set,

I think a honesty and realness

that was beautiful to watch, man.

He understood the dynamic between the two of them.

It just commanded respect.

And it also created so much tension between Adonis

and Damien, but there's a vulnerability in there.

It was a hurt, it was a softness that he had.

You still felt for him.

I think the most interesting antagonist are the ones

that you empathize with and you kind of understand

why they are the way they are.

You know, not at first, but throughout the film,

you kind of get a little bit more

of why they're doing what they're doing.

And I thought, I felt Jonathan played that perfectly.

Yeah, the fourth one eventually, not sure when,

but we left that door open to build on that franchise.

My thing is like, I don't wanna make a movie

just to make it, give it a little time to breathe,

make people want it, miss it a little bit.

And then when time is right,

I'll drop in and do another one.

[upbeat music]

I live my entire life waiting for this moment.

I trained alive, I killed just to get here.

I killed in America, Afghanistan, Iraq.

I took life from my own brothers and sisters

right here on this continent.

And all this death, just so I could kill you.

Black Panther, I played Eric Killmonger

You know, it was me and Coog's third film.

Always been a fan of Black Panther in the comic book.

So I'm a comic book nerd.

So it was one of the few characters that was Black.

As the Marvel movies were coming up and you're growing up

and you're watching them, as an actor,

you wanna play in that world.

You wanna be a part of that universe at some point,

there's only a couple handful of characters

that you would, you could imagine yourself actually playing.

But they already, they cast Chadwick first

and then Coog hit me, and then we talked about Killmonger

and it was like, All right, bet.

Like, let's get after it.

At that point, the trust was already established.

The relationship just kept getting stronger

and stronger from project to project.

I knew the conversation that he wanted

to have throughout the film.

What I thought was an important one, especially between,

you know, the Black American and the African diaspora,

you know what I'm saying?

And that relationship and that conversation

was an important one that needed to have.

Your weapons.

Our weapons will not be used to wage war in the world.

It is not our way to be judged, jury,

and executioner for people who are not our own.

Not your own.

But then life start right here on this continent.

It opened up so much communication

and understanding between the continent

and here in the States, amongst our community and people

that, I don't know if that movie doesn't get made,

I'm not sure if that conversation is happening right now.

In recent years, you have the year of the return in Ghana,

you know, you have a...

You see a lot of, much more tourism, much more visits

and vacations back to Africa since that movie came out.

There's change that can't be quantified

because of that movie, you know?

And I feel extremely privileged to be a part of it.

Coming back to do Panther 2 after the tragedy

of losing Chadwick was an extremely tough one.

I was in like pre-production for Creed 3.

So I was like, right getting ready to go direct.

At the time, I didn't even read the whole script,

so I didn't know what the whole movie was about.

Coog, yeah, he's your own brother.

He ain't even let me read the script, you know?

It was crazy.

Nah, but he kept that pretty, pretty close

to the vest for a lot of different reasons.

So I was just as excited as everybody else,

you know what I'm saying?

To watch the movie at the end, to kind of see what he did

with the whole thing, to be perfectly honest.

But it meant a lot to the cast,

I think the short time I was there,

and obviously, you know, the cast is extremely tight

and we all speak,

it felt like we were all doing it for Chadwick.

We did that movie for him.

It's about 2 billion people all over the world

that looks like us, but their lives are a lot harder.

Wakanda has the tools to liberate 'em all.

Killmonger represented a side of a conversation,

you know, I feel like, you know, Black Panther

and Killmonger, you know, love their people

in their country, like, more than anything,

they just had two different ways

to go on going about getting it done.

As a guy who never went to like acting school

or, you know, any, like never took any real lessons

or anything like that.

My approach to acting is always trying

to make things feel as real as possible to me.

And a character like Eric,

who didn't really experience a lot of love

throughout his life, spent a lot of it alone

and always had like a mission

that he wanted to kind of accomplish.

You know, while I was making that movie, I kind of like,

I kind of like played into that a bit,

kind of stayed a little bit isolated to myself,

didn't really allow myself to get too emotionally connected

to much of anything.

So, coming off that, you know, I didn't have a lot

of there was no playbook to like,

how do you get back to being more of yourself, you know?

So I kind of went through that process.

Therapy helped out a bunch.

Being around family, being of service to people

that you love and care about, just being present.

And that was a big lesson for me to learn at that point

during my life and career.

So now I know what I need personally to get out

of characters if I have to.

Yeah, that was an experience for me, for sure.

[upbeat music]

We played freeze tag today.

Really?

Did you win?

They couldn't catch me.

They think you fast, huh?

Faster than daddy?

Mmm, really?

I played Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station.

It was the first time that, you know, I got offered

to play a leading role.

I was still unsure a little bit

or figuring out like what kind of like career

I was gonna have.

What type of actor am I gonna be as a character actor.

I'm only in ensemble movies, like,

but now, like, I wanna see if I could actually carry a film.

So that was the first one.

It also opened up a lot of doors, a lot of doors for me.

You know, that movie meant so much to so many people,

you know, around the world,

but specifically to the community of Oakland

and his family, you know,

and his friends who lost Oscar.

You know, that's how I got to know Oscar

was through the people that knew him the best.

That was a transformative experience as well.

You know, as a...

On a human level, you know,

a young black man at the time,

I think Trayvon Martin had just got killed

right before I got casted in that.

And I was, I remember feeling extremely frustrated

and not really knowing how to express myself in a way

that I felt was productive.

I prayed and wished that I could do it

through my work and through my craft.

And I was just coming off of Chronicle at the time.

And then Coog reached out, got the script to me,

and I just knew that was kind of meant to be

'cause I was just, the way I was feeling as a person,

you know, that was like my way to you know,

say what I had to say.

[upbeat music]

Watch this.

What are you doing? Watch.

Go, go, go.

[tires screeching]

What?

Dude, no way.

Holy shit.

Dude, holy shit.

[men laughing]

How'd you do that? Did anybody see?

Steve Montgomery for President.

I play Steve Montgomery in Chronicle,

you know, Josh Trank wrote and directed that,

and it was an amazing experience.

We shot that in South Africa, it was in Cape Town,

which was my first time going to Africa,

which was really cool.

You know, it was a kind of origin superhero film,

but grounded, you know, in a weird way.

A lot of Akira, you know what I'm saying?

A lot of Akira inspiration for that movie

Found footage type vibe.

It was dope, man.

It was super creative,

and I felt like that was one of the looks and feels

to the movie that made it so unique

and made it stand out a bit.

It was because we took that approach.

You know, the risks that Josh took cinematography wise,

just how he photographed it

and the camera moves that he chose to make.

Okay, buddy, whatcha wanna do?

[indistinct]

What are you doing? Abracadabra.

[Boy] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That was like my real first interaction

and with visual effects and special effects,

and really understanding what green screening is

and how do you paint things out,

and how do you, how are we flying and all that.

So that was my real, real education for me.

That kind of started the curiosity of like,

Oh, that's how it's done.

I'm the type of person I see it, see something done,

yonce or twice, you know, I can kind of...

I can get a grasp of it, you know what I'm saying?

That for me really showed me, like, the world

of visual effects and things that could be done

and it just kind of opened up my imagination

of what's possible, what I could do.

And I'm pretty sure when I look at things now,

or you know, it's because of that,

that beginning phase of understanding.

[upbeat music]

And you're a Harvard lawyer, has moved to Alabama.

You know, you start taking on all these capital cases,

you know, people just wanna know

what your intentions are, I guess.

We're just trying to give legal assistance

to people who can't afford it.

Well, legal assistance is one thing,

but trying to put convicted murderers back

on the street is something else entirely.

I played Bryan Stevenson, the honorable,

the legend, doing guy's work.

Bryan Stevenson is incredible person.

I feel like it was a story needed to be told.

You know, I try to choose projects,

a balance of things.

I always wanted to make sure I'm doing something

to push the culture, being disruptive in my own way,

trying to get people to think differently

and to empathize with people.

You know, working with Jamie was incredible,

and Brie Larson, she was great.

Destin was a phenomenal director.

We had a great crew and cast,

and just the whole family, that whole team

to make that movie was really, really, truly special.

So that one is close to my heart also.

[upbeat music]

I've been all over this world.

I seen men die,

in ways I ain't even know it's possible.

[brooding music]

I love you brother.

I played Smoke. Be careful.

And I also played Stack.

I will. Twin Brothers.

As a whole, you know, I work more than Coog in the sense

of just like, you know, throughout the year,

I could do two movies, three movies a year.

Coog does one movie every two years.

When he calls you and picks up the phone, you like,

Hey, we got something for you.

You just like, all let's go, this is what we doing.

Pitch the project to me.

He didn't take much convincing.

He told me about the elements that he wanted to incorporate,

you know, why story meant something to him

and what he, what he saw for me,

what he saw for the, you know,

what kind of impact it would have on my career,

and where I was in my career at the moment.

You know, it was a challenge.

It was nothing easy about making that movie.

I'm all about challenges and seeing what my limits is at,

and like and pushing the boundaries

so it was a win-win across the board.

And whenever we get a chance to go link up again,

it is just a good time.

So I want to be a part of it.

I love Miles.

Miles is a phenomenal human.

Loved that dude.

He grew every day, every scene, every opportunity.

You know, he just got better

and better as the movie went on.

He has an incredible voice.

You know, he was talking voice is like, is dope

but when he sings, it's like something else, you know?

And you know, it comes from a great family.

His parents did an amazing job.

You know, he's eager to learn,

asked a bunch of questions.

The future is really, really bright for him.

And I saw the film, what he did,

his performance was amazing.

I felt really lucky to be a part of his journey.

So, you know, in the beginning, and however I can help,

you know, he knows, you know what I'm saying?

I'm, you know, I'm a resource for him.

He could do whatever he wants to do.

You know, he's already been on tour,

played in front of, sold out arenas before

and all that good stuff.

But the kids' dedication to wanna be great

and want to be great at whatever he puts his mind to

is something that is really nice to see.

I feel good with him, he gonna be straight.

[upbeat music]

Dope is straight.

[crowd screaming]

Don't worry, don't worry.

These are for training purposes only, okay?

Now, have any of you guys ever seen one

of these bad things for real?

No.

We burned almost every physical book in the country.

So by the time you guys grow up,

there won't be one book left.

If you're familiar with the novel in the book.

So crazy how life imitates art, art imitates life.

The cycle that reigns that movie is so telling

to the times that we live in today

and the things that are trying to be put in place.

But the freedom of education and knowledge

and free thought, was a big theme of that movie.

And I kind of felt that movie and that character

would resonate with people.

I felt like us as a society, as people,

we were headed in that direction.

Almost like a cautionary tale, you know what I mean?

To a few things.

[upbeat music]

Can I do this?

Can you do what?

I know how bad you want this.

I can feel it.

How bad you wanna beat Dylan.

I don't think I'm the guy that can give it to you.

Tower baby QB1, you know, that cast was incredible.

That city and of Austin, Texas was great.

I love being there.

Yeah, that's another one of those shows that I was on

that opened up so many doors

because all the right people loved that show,

fans to producers, to casting directors

to, you know, it's usually like the executives

and the producers like wives love that show.

So they're, Oh, my wife loves you.

It's great, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[indistinct] audition, great.

I got it, awesome.

No, no, but it definitely helped out

and created warm environments for me to walk in

and leave a good impression.

Yeah. [clapping sounds]

We've been working hard, fellas,

what are we? Lions.

What do we play with? Lions.

What do we play for? Lions.

What are we? Lions.

Let's do this one, two, three.

That show really taught me the fluidity

of improv, guerilla shooting.

It felt like making an indie, you know what I mean?

Cameras would be moving all the time.

You know, Pete Berg would be yelling in the back

while we're in the middle of the scenes, not yelling cut.

It took away the preciousness of filmmaking.

I had this relationship with production

in a way that felt very professional and strict

and rule and this and that and everything had a place.

And I went down Texas and we threw all that shit

out the window.

And it was like, Improv.

All right, throw a camera up here.

Throw out up here, we shooting.

Let's do it.

Wrong side, all right, we'll get that later.

It was really just taught me of like by any means necessary,

get the shot, and get what you need to get.

That kind of appealed to me

'cause then I was kind of like, how I am as a person.

It's just, it's very, whatever it takes,

like it was like egoless filmmaking in a way.

It was dope.

[Interviewer] Did you have ever,

would you decided to pick up the series

and bring it back and pick up where y'all go?

Where we left off?

That's tough.

Like, if it was a show that was going,

they was doing Friday Night Lights over, like the show,

I would pop in for an episode.

I would, yeah, I would, I would.

I think I feel that way more than I do The Wire,

because I think I was part of the original cast.

I think the fact that I came in season 4 FNL,

I felt like if they did a reboot,

I was like, all right, I can come get in this world.

I'm cool with that.

[upbeat music]

Hey, you know, this is only the beginning, right?

Let's get it, you made it, man.

Orange juice?

Yeah, it was dope.

I mean, I'm being a fan of the NBA playing NBA 2K,

the My Player and everything.

The fact that I was in the game, that was like,

that was a moment for me, for sure.

I got a chance to help curate the soundtrack and everything.

So that was tough for me.

And then, you know, the dynamic between like Justice

and Perez was, you know, I wanted everybody to feel

like that was you and your best friend.

That was you and your wingman, you know,

trying to take on the world, trying to get to the league

and get that big contract, get those endorsement deals,

all of that, and obviously, depending on your My Player,

and depending on your style of play and what you chose.

Kobe Bryant did the intro to that one,

which was like, really special to me

because I got a chance to really like spend a lot of time

with him and that's where we kind of forged

our relationship and friendship.

Rest in peace, Kobe, you know,

so that was a big one for me for sure.

[Interviewer] So like, where do you go from there?

From that?

You know, centers, that's the next one.

But as far as directing goes,

this is Project Thomas Crown Affair

that I've been obsessed with since I was a kid.

Slowly been developing it, like kind of after Creed won,

I kind of discovered the property.

It was over at MGM and slowly, slowly developing it

over the past decade or so.

If everything would've happened for me to make that movie

10 years ago, it still wouldn't have been right,

I don't think, 'cause I don't think

I would've been old enough or lived enough to kind of like,

bring to it the way I want to, you know?

Now at 37, I feel like it's the perfect time

to step behind the camera

and in front of the camera and tell that story.

So that'll probably be my next one I'm doing.