Creed to Sinners: Michael B Jordan’s road to Oscars recognition
Across more than a decade, Michael B Jordan and director Ryan Coogler have built one of Hollywood’s most productive creative partnerships.
Their collaborations have given audiences Creed and Black Panther, and now their latest film, Sinners, has delivered the biggest moment yet.
The vampire horror sees Jordan portrays twin brothers Smoke and Stack who return home to Mississippi having worked for Al Capone in Chicago, and have big plans to open a juke joint in their home town but soon find themselves battling against an evil force.
The film earned a history-making 16 Academy Award nominations and it was Jordan’s first Oscar nod.
The 39-year-old looked shocked on Sunday evening as he accepted the award for best actor, beating the likes of Timothée Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Jordan is the seventh black performer to win an Oscar for a leading role and in his speech he said: “I stand here because of the people who came before me,” listing off the names of other winners including Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry.
‘Young Denzel Washington’
Jordan’s recognition comes after more than two decades in the industry, having started acting at just 15 when he played Wallace, a young drug dealer in the first season of the HBO drama The Wire.
From there he starred in other TV shows including soap opera All My Children and sports drama Friday Night Lights but his breakthrough came in 2013 when he met filmmaker Ryan Coogler who was in search of a lead for his first feature film, Fruitvale Station.
The drama tells the real-life story of Oscar Grant, a young man killed by police in Oakland, California, and his performance drew critical acclaim – magazines named his as an actor to watch and critics said his performance was reminiscent of “a young Denzel Washington”.
In 2015 he reunited with Coogler for Creed, a continuation of the boxing drama franchise Rocky in which Jordan starred alongside Sylvester Stallone as Adonis Creed, the son of boxer Apollo Creed, training under Rocky Balboa while trying to establish his own identity.
He reprised the role of the famous boxer for the sequel in 2018 and again in 2023 for Creed III in which he made his directorial debut as well as starring in it.
Jordan also collaborated with Coogler in 2018 with Black Panther where he played Erik Killmonger, one of the most memorable antagonists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Hardest role yet
In January, Jordan told W Magazine that his fifth collaboration with Coogler “presented a challenge” which came with a “little bit of anxiety” as it was a role that pushed him out of his comfort zone.
He said he worked with real-life identical twins as consultants to fully understand the dynamics which led him to add “subtle nuances and behavioural tics” to differentiate the two.
He told Vanity Fair it was the hardest role he had played because he didn’t have the “ability to improv and be spontaneous”.
“Whatever brother goes first sets the rules and the boundaries because the second take that I do, I’m marrying to that first performance.”
The film exceeded expectations with 16 Oscar nominations, beating the previous record total of 14 nominations achieved by All About Eve in 1951, Titanic in 1998 and La La Land in 2018.
Other Sinners cast members to be nominated include British-Nigerian actress Wunmi Mosaku and co-star Delroy Lindo, who grew up in London. Coogler was also nominated for directing the film and it was shortlisted for the best picture prize.
It also bucked the trend that normally means horror films don’t perform well at award ceremonies.
Though they often get nods in smaller categories like best makeup or special effects, it’s historically rare for the actors or the film as a whole to be appreciated – the last time a horror won best picture was The Silence of the Lambs in the early 1990s.
While the twin brothers must fight against a supernatural threat, the film is seen as more than just a horror with BBC culture editor Katie Razzall calling it the “perfect blend of revenge thriller and sexy, decadent, musical journey through America’s race issues, good against evil, the power of music – and redemption”.
The Academy Award was not the first gong Jordan picked up during this season as earlier in March he scored a surprise win for best actor at the Actor Awards, formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which gave him a surge of momentum in the final weeks before the Oscars.
Among those to congratulate Jordan is Premier League club Bournemouth who declared Jordan’s victory a “proud day for the Cherries family“.
Jordan led a minority ownership group that invested in the club in December 2022 when majority owner Bill Foley took over.
He’s attended matches in the past and first attended a game shortly after he invested in the club when they played Crystal Palace.
Fourth Wing TV adaptation
Alongside acting, Jordan has increasingly focused on producing and founded the production company Outlier Society. He has produced several films and series, including with the forthcoming heist remake The Thomas Crown Affair.
His company has also snapped up the rights with Amazon to author Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros’ fantasy novels, which have sold millions of copies globally in 40 languages.
In February he told the BBC that the casting of its beloved characters is still very much in the works and there won’t be any “obvious choices”.
Fourth Wing introduces heroine Violet Sorrengail, a 20-year-old woman who is thrust into brutal training to become an elite dragon rider. The book franchise now spans three books, with two more expected.
Jordan also promised fans that the show – about dragons, magic, warfare and steamy romance – won’t be “cheesy”. He said he doesn’t know whether he might play a role himself in the show.
Talking about his interest in directing, the actor told BBC News that as his career has grown he has wanted to “explore other parts of the industry and other parts of our business and other parts of storytelling”.
He added that it’s “been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time” and he told Variety in February that he was “looking forward to directing something that I’m not in at all”.