A bigger, meaner ‘Panther’ villain
Jordan packed on muscle, packed his dimples.
LOS ANGELES – What makes a bad guy appear menacing?
In James Bond films, the answer tends to be facial scars or over-the-top weaponry. Animated Disney movies often rely on vaguely British accents and oblong faces for their baddies.
But according to Michael B. Jordan’s trainer, Corey Calliet, there’s another way to give someone a villainous look: Have him “get massive.”
That is, get him even bigger than the strapping heroes he played in Creed (Adonis Johnson) and Fantastic Four (Johnny Storm). Fifteen pounds bigger.
This was the task for training Jordan to play Erik Killmonger, the mysterious mercenary in Marvel’s Black Panther (in theaters now), who becomes T’Challa’s most formidable antagonist.
In addition to Jordan’s self-imposed “smile strike,” which prevented him from showing off his pearly whites and swoon-worthy dimples, here’s how the actor got into “mean” shape.
He quit what he did for ‘Creed’
Back when Calliet trained Jordan to play Apollo Creed’s son for the Rocky spinoff, he had the actor focus on getting “lean, lean, lean.” Jordan was running and boxing and getting cut.
With new goals — namely, “getting big” — the actor’s routine switched to interval sprints and weightlifting.
He bench-pressed 300+ pounds
If Calliet had to simplify Jordan’s Black Panther weight training into three movements, it would be curls, squats and bench presses.
“He bench-pressed 315 pounds, twice,” Calliet says. “That’s a lot!”
He ate ‘from sunup to sundown’
Calliet, who also is the actor’s nutritionist, had Jordan eating six meals a day.
“He’s eating from sunup to sundown, and his metabolism is speeding up so much, so he had to eat, eat, eat. He needed energy, because this is an action movie,” Calliet says.
What was he eating, exactly? “Potatoes, chicken, eggs, bacon. It was a mass-gaining diet.” Yes, sometimes Jordan would sneak sweets and “had to deal with me, and that’s not a good thing.”
And the training continues
Jordan trained for Black Panther for four months before filming began. During the shoot, he worked out five times a week, once or twice a day (depending on his shooting schedule). “He was only in the gym two hours max per day,” Calliet says.
But, no, Jordan isn’t skimping on the gym now that Black Panther is in theaters. In fact, Calliet has the movie star back on the high-cardio Creed fitness plan: Creed 2 is out Nov. 21.