The “incredible experience” that gave Michael B Jordan a filmmaking masterclass
Over the last ten years, not many actors have given quite an impressive account of themselves as Michael B Jordan.
From his breakout movie role in the Rocky spin-off Creed to this year’s horror smash Sinners, Jordan has picked his roles wisely and put in performances that cement his role as one of Hollywood’s hottest properties.
His partnership with director Ryan Coogler, a University of Southern California film graduate has been a fruitful one; aside from the Creed franchise, which encompasses two further movies, Coogler also worked with Jordan on two Black Panther films for Marvel and Sinners, which has proved a hit with critics and audiences alike.
The pair’s movies have now grossed some $2.5billion in box office sales, meaning Jordan can pretty much pick and choose what his next project will be. He’s now twice been named in Time’s top 100 most influential people in the world, and has followed in the footsteps of the likes of Ryan Reynolds by investing in British football, snapping up a stake in AFC Bournemouth.
His appearance in an early Coogler movie, Fruitvale Station, earned him comparisons to a “young Denzel Washington”, and indeed, the legendary Training Day actor has had a huge influence on Jordan as his career has progressed.
Fruitvale Station won the ‘Grand Jury Prize’ at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was Coogler’s directorial debut. It tells the story of a young man killed by transport police at a San Francisco train station and begins with real-life footage of events from that evening. It appeared in several lists of that year’s best movies and sparked Coogler’s career as a director of some repute.
Jordan, meanwhile, picked up several awards for his portrayal of Oscar Grant, the man shot dead by the police. “I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy role to play,” he said at the time, “But I saw a lot of similarities to myself”.
The opportunity to work with Washington presented itself in 2021 when Jordan signed up for A Journal for Jordan, a film about a US Soldier killed on duty in Iraq who leaves a record of love and thoughts on life for his young son back home. And being directed by one of his heroes certainly had an effect on the younger actor.
He explained to Entertainment Weekly: “Being directed by Denzel, it’s like you had a masterclass at everything. He shows up every day to work to give it his all. He leaves with nothing in the tank, so you’ve got to match that energy and that drive. So it definitely pushed me to do more. That was an incredible experience.”
While the movie didn’t fare too well at the box office, it is one of those films that audiences love far more than critics, and the time spent with Washington gave Jordan inspiration for directing his first project, the third instalment in the Creed series. Jordan continued, noting, “The opportunity to work with one of my mentors and somebody that I idolised, to be able to learn from him and be directed by him, was priceless”.
The actor will soon be seen in a second remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the classic Steve McQueen art heist movie from 1968. He will also direct the film, which will feature Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone.
It seems Jordan has only just begun to scratch the surface of what he might achieve in cinema. He told the New York Times, “I think that through film, you can get people to sit down and think about the way other people are treated, the way they are judged, being different. You may not have the ability to come in contact with or hang out with somebody that looks like me. But if I can show the humanity and the reliability, you can bridge the gap.”
