Michael B. Jordan

Jon Sterngass

Description

Michael B. Jordan got his start as a child model before he took up acting in television shows including The Wire and All My Children. Some of his finest moments, however, were in film, including the roles of Adonis Creed in the Creed films and of Erik "Killmonger" Stevens/N'Jadaka in Marvel's Black Panther—the highest-grossing solo superhero film and the highest-grossing film by a black director. Now in his 30s, Jordan shows no sign of slowing down. Michael B. Jordan profiles this hardworking actor and his amazing career.

Sujets

• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• Actuación
• América
• Television
• Producer
• Performing arts
• African American
• American
• Art performance
• Actor
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438197876
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Michael B. Jordan
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Contents Chapters Sensitivity and Swagger Falling in Love with Acting Working to Build a Rep Up, Down, and Up Again Black Panther What s Next? Support Materials Timeline Selected Filmography Further Resources Bibliography About the Author Learn More About The Rocky Franchise Ryan Coogler
Chapters
Sensitivity and Swagger
"I wanted to own the set"
In the film Black Panther , Michael B. Jordan's first appearance in the mythical African nation of Wakanda is not an action scene. In fact, Jordan, playing the role of Erik "Killmonger" Stevens/N'Jadaka, is handcuffed throughout the scene. Physically, he is helpless and can do nothing more than raise his voice. Yet he completely dominates the scene. He taunts T'Challa, also known as the Black Panther, into passivity, and arrogantly dismisses Queen Ramonda with a snide, "Hey Auntie." He snarls and howls with such authority that he already seems to be the King of Wakanda. In the actual dialogue of ideas, Killmonger gives as good as he gets, to the extent that it is not clear if he is the villain or the hero.
"I wanted to own the set that day," Jordan said later. And he did. When asked how he felt once the scene was finished, he responded "Like I took it."
Black Panther , a remake of a comic book tale about a superhero, opened in February 2018. By the time its run in theaters was over, it had collected more than 1.2 billion in ticket sales. Wherever it played, lines for tickets wrapped around the block or snaked through the mall.
It became the highest-grossing solo superhero film and the highest-grossing film by a black director. Black Panther put to rest the long-standing myth that a superhero film with a mainly black cast had to be targeted to black audiences instead of promoted to mainstream America.
More than that, Black Panther was a cultural event and a moment of deep pride for the African American community. Black schools, churches, and organizations flocked to the theaters to see the almost entirely black cast. Sometimes they bought out entire theaters and dozens of venues broke records for attendance. Excited viewers wore costumes or special outfits, posed and took photos. Some people ran crowd-funding campaigns to buy tickets for African American children who might otherwise be able to see it. The concept of 'Wakanda,' the black utopia at the center of the film, became a part of U.S. culture with the "Wakanda forever" salute. Kids threw Black Panther –themed birthday parties and bought action figures based on the movie.
For African Americans, a group not often the focus of Hollywood movies, Black Panther seemed like a miracle. Wakanda represented an idea, an uncolonized and technologically advanced African nation that was never decimated by the slave trade and in control of its own resources. In addition to the film's themes of black pride, black power, and black dignity, Black Panther also celebrated African cultures, costume design, languages, music, and customs in an imagined world far beyond the reach of European American racism.
Michael B. Jordan's electrifying performance as Erik Killmonger helped make Black Panther a hit. He received the most critical acclaim of any one in the extremely well-reviewed cast. The reviewer in the New Yorker admitted, "While [Chadwick] Boseman [Black Panther] does what he can with the ever-noble hero, Jordan is so relaxed and so unstiff that, if you're anything like me, you'll wind up rooting for the baddie when the two of them battle it out. Jordan has swagger to spare, with those rolling shoulders, but there's a breath of charm, too."
Jordan took his role especially seriously. Killmonger grew up fatherless and poor, abandoned by his powerful and wealthy family in Wakanda. His predicament bred a brutal and desperate anger. "To be able to take that kind of pain and rage," Jordan said, "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 perfectly captured Killmonger's determination, righteous anger, and over-the-top lunacy, nowhere better than when he hollers. "I've waited my whole life for this. The world's going to start over. I'ma burn it all!"
Jordan came into the making of Black Panther as an up-and-coming star; after the movie's release, he was a worldwide phenomenon.

Michael B. Jordan and his mother Donna Jordan at the 91st Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, on February 24, 2019.
Source: Shutterstock.
A Movie Star for the Twenty-First Century
Michael Bakari Jordan (Bakari means "of noble promise" in Swahili) was not an overnight sensation. He had been acting since he was a teenager, and his first performances coincided with the turning of the millennium. Jordan's television roles include Wallace in the television series The Wire (2002), Reggie Montgomery in the soap opera All My Children (2003-06), and Vince Howard in the dramatic series Friday Night Lights (2009-11). These performances earned Jordan a cult-like following, small but passionate.
However, Jordan has become better known for his movie roles. His breakthrough came when he played Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old black man shot by police for no reason at a transit station in Oakland, California, in the drama Fruitvale Station (2013). He followed this by playing boxer Adonis Creed in the Rocky series sequel film Creed (2015) and the same role again in Creed II (2018).
Jordan has appeared in several films and television series featuring people with superpowers: Steve Montgomery in Chronicle (2012); Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (2015), and producing the television series Raising Dion (2019). Of course, his most famous role was playing Killmonger in Black Panther (2018). In three of Jordan's best performances ( Fruitvale Station , Creed , and Black Panther ) he worked in partnership with his friend, director Ryan Coogler.
Jordan has become an exciting star in Hollywood. He has the type of fiery charisma that allows him to steal a Rocky movie from Sylvester Stallone, or a superhero movie from a superhero. His physical presence on screen, especially his good looks, body, and huge smile, combines sensitivity with swagger. Handsome and confident, Jordan has been compared to Will Smith, Matt Damon, and Leonardo DiCaprio as a star with potentially worldwide reach. "I just want to tell honest stories and good movies," Jordan has said. "If I get put in that conversation with other talented actors and films, I'll take that as a plus too."
In addition to his work as an actor, Jordan has become a force in the film industry. In 2016, he founded his own production company, Outlier Society, to create socially driven films and entertainment projects. In order to create equal opportunities for minorities in the entertainment industry, Outlier Society adopted a diversity inclusion rider for every future project they would consider. Warner Bros., a huge entertainment corporation, followed his lead only six months later.
Michael B. Jordan's career has followed a gradual upward arc to reach the heights of stardom. "I think what kind of helped keep my sanity was I never got too much too fast," he noted. "It was always stepping stones, small success and I was able to grow with my work. I was able to mature as a man. I didn't have any crazy child actor stories. I'm not going bald."
An Actor and/or a Black Actor
As a black actor in the United States, Jordan is faced with some skin-color specific problems. Roles written for black characters were mostly written by whites and filled with the writer's preconceived notions of African Americans. In his early work, Jordan had frequently been stuck playing the troubled youth, based on white stereotypes. As Jordan's fame grew, he wanted to present the black experience on screen and to represent African Americans in ways that were rarely seen in white-dominated U.S. mainstream film and television.
At the same time, Jordan did not want to be limited to playing 'black' roles. "It's obvious that I'm black," he said, "but why do I have to be labelled as that?" He wanted to prove himself as an actor, not just as a black actor. He hoped to become a global superstar which meant that he dreamed of a utopian world in which ethnicity did not matter. "Let's start making some colorless material," Jordan said. "Not black movies, not black roles. Colorless. Where it doesn't matter who plays it."
Around the time of Fruitvale Station (2013), Jordan caused a stir when he told his agents that he no longer wanted to audition for roles written for African Americans. Instead, he only wanted "to go out for roles that were written for white characters… Me playing the role will make it what it is. I don't want any pre-bias on the character… I want to be part of that movement that blurs the line between white and black."
In fact, Jordan did take some roles that were originally written as 'white,' such as Steve Montgomery in Chronicle , Johnny Storm/The Human Torch in  Fantastic Four , and Montag in Fahrenheit 451 . None of these roles were written for an African American. "That was important to me, to create an example," he said. "The best actor should get the job regardless, as long as it's not conflicting with the facts of a character." Of course, Jordan also knew that, historically, there were a limited number of films for African American leading men that portrayed them outside the realm of stereotype.
Some African American fan