Michael B. Jordan

• 1. Introduction

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  Michael B. Jordan won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Sinners, a 2025 period horror film in which he played twin brothers. The win made him the seventh Black performer in history to take an Oscar in a lead acting category. It is a long way from where he started. He was a child model from Newark, New Jersey, who worked for a sporting goods chain and a toy store. How did he get from there to the Oscar stage? What happened when one director kept casting him in the most important roles of his career? And why does an actor this successful now spend so much energy producing, directing and buying stakes in sports teams?

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• 2. Newark Roots

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  Michael Bakari Jordan was born on the 9th of February 1987 in Santa Ana, California. His mother was Donna. His father, Michael A. Jordan, worked as a supervisor at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The elder Jordan later started a catering business, and he was involved in Pan-Africanism. Michael has an older sister and a younger brother.

  The family spent two years in Santa Ana before moving to Newark, New Jersey, where Jordan grew up. At Newark Arts High School he played basketball. His mother also worked there as a teacher, so school and home overlapped.

  Before he chose acting, Jordan worked as a child model for several companies and brands. Two of them were Modell's Sporting Goods and Toys "R" Us. Those jobs were a first taste of working in front of a camera, and his first professional acting credits arrived at the end of the 1990s.

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• 3. Years on Television

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  In 1999 Jordan appeared briefly in single episodes of two television series, Cosby and The Sopranos. On The Sopranos he played a Rideland kid in the episode "Down Neck". His first principal film role came in 2001 in Hardball, which starred Keanu Reeves. He played a character named Jamal.

  In 2002 he took the small but pivotal role of Wallace in the first season of the HBO crime drama The Wire. He appeared in 12 episodes. That part gave him some of his first real attention as an actor.

  In March 2003 Jordan joined the soap opera All My Children, replacing Chadwick Boseman in the role of Reggie Montgomery. Reggie was a troubled teenager. Jordan played him in 59 episodes until June 2006, when he was released from his contract.

  Guest spots followed on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace and Cold Case. He took a lead role in the independent film Blackout. He also starred in The Assistants on The-N. In 2008 he appeared in the music video "Did You Wrong" by the rhythm and blues artist Pleasure P.

  Friday Night Lights gave him a new regular role in 2009. He played Vince Howard, a quarterback, in 26 episodes of the NBC drama. He lived in an apartment in Austin, where the show was filmed. The series ended in 2011.

  Between those seasons Jordan kept busy with guest parts. In 2009 he played a high-school football player on Burn Notice who gets into a fight and is hunted by a local gangster. In 2010 he played a boxer on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in an episode inspired by the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal. That same year he won a recurring part on Parenthood as Alex, the love interest of Haddie Braverman. It was his second collaboration with the showrunner Jason Katims, who had also been in charge of Friday Night Lights.

  Recognition began to arrive. Nylon counted him among 55 faces of the future in its "Young Hollywood" issue in 2010. BuddyTV ranked him number 80 on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011". He also lent his voice to Jace in the video game Gears of War 3.

  In 2012 Jordan appeared in Red Tails, a film produced by George Lucas. He also played the lead, Steve Montgomery, in Chronicle, a film about three teenaged boys who develop superhuman abilities. In the final season of House he guest-starred as a blind patient. A year later he would meet a young director who changed the direction of his career.

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• 4. Coogler Collaborations

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  In 2013 Jordan played Oscar Grant, a shooting victim, in Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler. Critics praised the performance. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said Jordan reminded him of "a young Denzel Washington". People and Variety named him an actor to watch. Time listed him alongside Coogler among 30 people under 30 who are changing the world. Entertainment Weekly and GQ both named him one of the breakout stars of 2013.

  In 2015 Jordan played Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, in Fantastic Four. Critics panned the film almost universally. It held a 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was a bust at the box office.

  Later that same year he rebounded in Creed, his second film with Coogler. The film was a spinoff of the Rocky series. Jordan played Donnie Creed, the son of the boxer Apollo Creed, and Sylvester Stallone co-starred. To prepare, Jordan trained rigorously for one year and followed a stringent, low-fat diet. He used no body double. During the fight scenes he was "routinely bloodied, bruised, and dizzy".

  In February 2018 Jordan played the villain Erik Killmonger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Black Panther. It was his third film with Coogler. Dani Di Placido of Forbes wrote that Jordan "steals the show". Jason Guerrasio of Business Insider praised a villain played "with a swagger that's just a joy to watch". He added that the film improves whenever Jordan is on screen.

  The role took a toll. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jordan said that preparing for Killmonger left a mark on him, and that he sought out therapy as a result. He later returned to the character in two episodes of the first season of What If...? in 2021, and again in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022.

  Creed II, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States on the 21st of November 2018, brought Jordan back as Adonis "Donnie" Creed. It was the eighth installment in the Rocky film series. Reviews were generally positive. The film opened to $35.3 million over the weekend and $55.8 million across five days. That was the biggest debut ever for a live-action release over Thanksgiving. Five years later, a third Creed film would put Jordan behind the camera as well.

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• 5. Producer and Director

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  Jordan runs a production company called Outlier Society Productions. Through it, he co-produced Gen:Lock, an animated series from Rooster Teeth that began in January 2019. He also voices the character Julian Chase in the show.

  In 2018 he starred in and produced Fahrenheit 451, a television film made by HBO Films. Michael Shannon and Sofia Boutella appeared alongside him. The project earned Jordan a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Television Movie.

  In December 2019 came Just Mercy, a legal drama based on a real-life story. Jordan played the attorney Bryan Stevenson and co-produced the film. It was released to positive reviews.

  He next starred in Without Remorse, based on a book by Tom Clancy. He played John Kelly, a former Navy SEAL who becomes director of the elite counterterrorism unit Rainbow Six. The film was planned for release on the 18th of September 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed it back to the 30th of April 2021.

  In 2021 he also starred in A Journal for Jordan, directed by Denzel Washington, and helped produce it. His character was a soldier who kept a journal of life lessons for his newborn son while deployed overseas.

  Creed III reached audiences on the 3rd of March 2023. It marked Jordan's directorial debut. He also produced the film and starred again as Donnie Creed.

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• 6. Projects Ahead

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  Outlier Society has signed a first-look deal with Amazon. One project in development is Val-Zod, an HBO Max series built around a Black version of the DC Comics character Superman. Jordan was also set to produce and star in a sequel to I Am Legend alongside Will Smith.

  Jordan is slated to work with Coogler for a fifth time in Wrong Answer. The film is based on the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. He is also set to direct, produce and star in a second remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Another announced role is in Blood Brothers, a vampire film.

  In March 2026 Prime Video ordered Delphi, a drama series he is producing. It is set in the Rocky and Creed universe and follows young fighters training at the Delphi Boxing Academy from the films.

  In April 2026 Jordan was announced as a producer of a film adaptation of the Electronic Arts video game Battlefield, and he may star in it.

  In May 2026 Deadline reported that Jordan will be an executive producer on a series adaptation of Rebecca Yarros's bestselling novel Fourth Wing. Prime Video gave the project a series order.

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• 7. Honors and Rankings

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  Beyond his Oscar, Jordan's list of accolades includes three Actor Awards and a Producers Guild Award. He has also been nominated for a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Emmy Awards.

  Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world twice, in 2020 and again in 2023. In 2020 People magazine also named him Sexiest Man Alive. That same year The New York Times ranked him 15th on its list of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century.

  The year 2020 also brought a change in his private life, which began that November.

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• 8. Beyond the Screen

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  In November 2020 Jordan began dating the model Lori Harvey, the adoptive daughter of television personality Steve Harvey. In June 2022 the couple announced that they had ended their relationship.

  Jordan has lived in Los Angeles since 2006. He grew up in a religious household and considers himself spiritual. He bought a home in Sherman Oaks and lived there with his parents.

  He is a fan of anime. His favorite series are Naruto: Shippuden and the Dragon Ball franchise, and his favorite film is Princess Mononoke. Having grown up in Newark, he is a lifelong supporter of the New York Giants. He also supports the Premier League club Everton FC.

  Tom Cruise and Will Smith are Jordan's career idols, admired for building global careers and becoming movie stars. He has sought advice from both men and has received endorsements from Cruise. For his own filmmaking he cites Ryan Coogler, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Stanley Kubrick, Alfonso Cuarón, George Lucas and Christopher Nolan as influences.

  In December 2023 Jordan crashed his Ferrari 812 Superfast into a parked Kia. He was uninjured. Police investigated the incident for street racing. Another driver nearby said they were "pacing" but insisted they were not racing. Jordan was eventually not charged "due to lack of evidence".

  In December 2022 Jordan was announced as part-owner of the English soccer club AFC Bournemouth. The club had been taken over by a consortium called the Black Knights Football Club, led by the American businessman Bill Foley. Jordan led the minority ownership group together with Nullah Sarker, the founder of Kosmos.

  His sporting investments also reach Formula One. Jordan is an investor in the Alpine F1 Team, alongside the fellow actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

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