‘Lonely’ role led to therapy for Black Panther villain

NEW YORK— It isn’t easy being Killmonger.

Michael B. Jordan opened up about the toll playing the villain in Black Panther took on his mental health.

Jordan, 31, revealed he sought professional help after filming wrapped.

“I went to therapy, I started talking to people, starting unpacking a little bit,” he said.

Jordan discussed his process for getting into character Tuesday in conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the taping of her SuperSoul Conversations TV special. “I was by myself, isolating myself,” Jordan said when Winfrey asked where he went to “get all that nastiness” to play the Marvel super villain.

“I spent a lot of time alone. I figured Erik Killmonger, his childhood growing up was pretty lonely. He didn’t have a lot of people he could talk to about this place called Wakanda that didn’t exist.”

Jordan said he wanted to do justice to the essence of what Killmonger represents in the movie.

“Of course, it’s an extreme, exaggerated version of the African diaspora from the African-American perspective, so to be able to take that kind of pain and rage and all those emotions that Erik kind of represents from being black and brown here in America ... that was something I didn’t take lightly,” Jordan said.

“I didn’t have a process” for being Killmonger, he added, “I just did whatever I felt I needed to do or whatever I felt was right in the moment every step of the way.”

However, “I didn’t have an escape plan, either,” he confessed.

“Readjusting to people caring about me, getting that love that I shut out,” he continued. “I shut out love, I didn’t want love. I wanted to be in this lonely place as long as I could.”