‘Panther,’ ‘Creed’ put Michael B. Jordan on A-list
The actor has a hard time these days going out in public. But he vows to keep it real on Instagram.
NEW YORK – Stars, they’re just like us. Or at least they try to be.
❚ Michael B. Jordan can no longer walk out the door without getting recognized, with his chiseled physique currently plastered across billboards and bus ads for “Creed II” (in theaters Wednesday) and his scene-stealing turn as “Black Panther” villain Erik Killmonger still fresh in people’s minds. ❚ “There are certain places I can’t go anymore and certain things I can’t do,” Jordan, 31, says sighing. “I still try to find things that, at least in my head, make me feel regular, like going to the grocery store. Sometimes I want to pick out the apple that I want to eat, rather than the one somebody gives me.”
Sunglasses and baseball caps don’t throw fans off his scent, either. “I wish I could go full beard, hoodie and shades, but then people might think I’m trying to rob the place, and that’s not cool,” he says. “Or maybe I’m thinking too much.”
These are the concerns that oc- cupy his mind as he steps into his place on the Hollywood A-list, having proved himself a bankable leading man in the “Rocky” franchise spinoff “Creed” in 2015, which went on to earn almost $110 million.
The sequel picks up not long after the events of the first film, with dogged boxer Adonis Creed (Jordan) a newly crowned world champion and engaged to his musician girlfriend, Bianca (Tessa Thompson). But a rift forms between him and his mentor, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), when Adonis accepts a challenge to fight hulking Ukrainian boxer Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), whose father Ivan (Dolph Lundgren) killed Adonis’ dad Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in 1985’s “Rocky IV.”
Adonis “is still very hurt by his father’s death, and having the Dragos reintroduced in this brought up a lot of bad history and memories,” Jordan says. “The taste of revenge is in his mouth,” and as a result, “he’s a little immature. He’s emotional and gets humbled in a real way. Things he experiences in this movie allow him to reassess what’s important to him.”
Having already bulked up for “Black Panther,” Jordan says it was easy to fall back into his “Creed” workout routine, which involved intense cardio and boxing training and a stricter, leaner diet.
To play Killmonger, Jordan “gained mass. He was a weapon,” says “Creed II” director Steven Caple Jr. “But in this film, he wanted to be at his all-time prime. We wanted it to look as realistic as possible when he’s up against Florian. He (got) cut and shredded to look great on camera – it’s probably the best shape he’s ever been in.”
The emotional stakes also are upped this round, as Adonis wrestles with the very real possibility that his newborn daughter could inherit Bianca’s progressive hearing loss.
Preparing for those scenes was “tough because I don’t have any children, so I can only imagine what that would be like; feeling so hopeless to help your child who you’re supposed to be there to protect and you can’t do anything about it,” Jordan says. But as someone who’s “always thought about fatherhood and having kids, it was cool to play that role for a bit.”
Smitten fans will be delighted to know that Jordan is single, despite the internet’s efforts to pair him with his “Black Panther” co-star Lupita Nyong’o. (”I love her to death,” he says, but “people will write their own narratives.”)
The actors are in the midst of a serious awards push for Marvel’s superhero juggernaut, which has amassed $1.3 billion worldwide since its release in February and shattered the Hollywood myth that films with predominantly black casts don’t sell tickets overseas.
The phenomenon around it is “honestly still so hard to wrap my brain around,” says Jordan, marveling over the countless memes and kids’ Hallow- een costumes inspired by his character. He credits the success of “Panther” in large part to Ryan Coogler, who “allowed people to see and feel things they wouldn’t normally” in a Marvel movie: incorporating a timely message of building bridges instead of barriers and sparking deeper conversations about identity and the African diaspora.
“Panther” is looking to crash awards season in the meantime: On GoldDerby.com, pundits near-unanimously predict the blockbuster will earn a best-picture Oscar nomination, with a handful expecting Jordan to land a supporting actor nod as well. If so, his performance would be the first from a superhero film to earn Academy recognition since Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in 2008’s “The Dark Knight.”
“That would mean a lot, man. I’d be a part of history, and it’d be part of my legacy,” Jordan says. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, the son of a caterer and high school guidance counselor, he wasn’t the kid who practiced Oscar speeches in his bathroom mirror: “I never even dreamed about it. I wasn’t one of those kids who always knew I wanted to be an actor.”
After working as a child model, he landed the pivotal role of the ill-fated Wallace in HBO’s “The Wire” at age 14. Years of steady TV work led to his breakthrough performance in Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” in 2013, playing reallife police-shooting victim Oscar Grant.
“I was still convincing myself that (my big break) was going to happen. I was still faking it, in the sense that, ‘I believe it, I got faith,’ but there was a lot of doubt there, too,” Jordan says. “I stayed the path and continued to work hard knowing that good would come. I just never knew it was going to come this fast and this huge.”
He started Outlier Society Productions, which produced his upcoming drama “Just Mercy” and Netflix series “Raising Dion,” and aims to create more opportunities for people of color.
The charismatic heartthrob recently told his Instagram followers that he plans to be more “personal.”
“I’m a quiet dude. But you’re in this new age where fans want to feel a little bit closer to you,” Jordan says. “So instead of people making their own assumptions about me, let’s help them out a bit and give them more of myself, so they don’t have to fill in as many blanks.”
“I (worked) knowing good
would come. I never knew it
was going to come this fast.”
Michael B. Jordan