Michael B. Jordan says that after the success of “Fruitvale Station,” he told his agents he wanted to steer clear of the lane of roles written specifically with Black actors in mind — instead actively pursuing roles seeking to cast a white actor.
“I said, I don’t want it. I want to only go for, like, [roles written for] white males. That’s it. Me playing that role is going to make it what it is. I don’t want any pre-bias on the character.
I wanted to go out for these roles because it was just playing people. It didn’t have to be like, ‘You’re playing the black guy in this.’ And everybody would be going out for the same role. Every young black actor from ages 17 to 40 going out for the same role. How do you reverse engineer that problem of pitted competition with each other and give more opportunities to eat and be successful?””
We feel him in his avoidance of getting typecast or taking roles with a certain view of a Black man’s experience…but seeing as how his most successful roles have been that of Adonis Creed and Erik Killmonger — two very distinctly Black characters — maybe it’s time to reconsider that stance? What do you think?
Getty/Variety
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