‘How can I do better?’: Michael B Jordan’s Oscar win for Sinners is a deserved reward for an outstanding actor
From The Wire to Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, the Academy award winner has amassed a body of work that straddles commercial and critical success
Michael B Jordan’s best actor Oscar places him in an exclusive club. Only five black actors have won the award before. He now sits on a list that includes Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington and Sidney Poitier, the first black winner for Lilies of the Field in 1964.
But less than a month ago, it seemed unlikely. Jordan’s success at the Actors awards was the first serious hint that he could beat Timothée Chalamet, who had won at the Golden Globes and was the frontrunner for much of the awards campaign. But Chalamet, who made a few missteps on the campaign trail, was up against one of the most well-loved actors operating in Hollywood. Jordan is someone who at only 39 years old has managed to amass a body of work that straddles commercial and critical success.
Out of his list of predecessors, Jordan most resembles Washington and Poitier – talented and driven – with a desire to ascend the heights of his industry and remain there. Jordan’s acceptance speech acknowledged his cast and the five other black actors who have won the award before him, but it also alluded to Jordan’s own unique position in US culture. “I know you guys want me to do well,” he said after thanking everyone in the room who’d supported him. “And I want to do that because you guys bet on me, so thank you for keeping betting on me.”
The wager that many have made is that Jordan is the African-American movie star of his generation: he is capable of leading the biggest franchises, of fronting Calvin Klein campaigns, of winning sexiest man alive awards and of being captivating on screen – even when playing juke-joint-owning twins in a vampire thriller.
Jordan’s journey began in Newark, New Jersey, where he was bullied at school because he shared a name with the greatest basketball player of all time, and because he was upfront about his aims to become an actor. His mother Donna, who was by his side at the Oscars, was instrumental in helping him get into acting after being told when he was 11 years old that he should consider modelling.
Last week his former drama teacher spoke about his early focus. “Our conversations were always about how he could get better,” he said. “He’d ask me, ‘How can I do better at an audition? Do you have any audition material for me?’ He was a tremendous worker – very empathetic, very compassionate and beyond his years.” Other teachers have spoken about his poise and maturity, even as a young teen.
Jordan was still in school when he landed the role of naive drug dealer Wallace, who becomes embroiled in the deadly world of Baltimore’s gangs in David Simon’s The Wire. Arguably the show’s most memorable moment came when his former boss repeatedly asks the man responsible for his murder, “Where’s Wallace at?” Despite not being on screen, Wallace’s performance helped create a moment that spoke to the destructive callousness of the war on drugs.
His next big moment came with Fruitvale Station, his first collaboration with Coogler, the real-life story of Oscar Grant, an African-American man killed by police in Oakland on New Year’s Day 2009. It was shot on a tiny budget and was one of the standouts at the 2013 Sundance film festival. With that intense and heart-wrenching performance, Jordan proved he had the ability to be the centre of a film that spoke to larger overarching themes that dominate American life.
Then came an unexpected twist: a move into genre movies. Coogler was chosen as the director to resurrect the Rocky series with the Creed spin-offs, and Jordan was cast as the son of Balboa’s former rival turned mentor, Apollo Creed. Three commercially successful Creed films followed, taking more than £600m at the box office.
The actor’s relationship with Coogler, which now spans five films, has been likened to De Niro and Scorsese’s: a tight actor/director union that yields consistently solid results. They also deliver at the box office, with Sinners bringing in over £300m globally, well above Oscar rival One Battle After Another.
His turn as Killmonger in Black Panther (another Coogler picture) managed to trigger a culture war argument about the provenance of items held by the British Museum. His fan adoration also played into the narrative that the character, who was pitched as the film’s villain, was actually more complicated and could be seen as a Pan-African anti-colonialist hero.
Some wondered in the buildup to the Oscars about whether Jordan is a “star” rather than a “great actor”. After his Oscars win, the truth appears that he is both.