Michael B. Jordan

"To be young, Black and successful — and disruptive — in this industry, there’s a certain navigation to get to the place I need to get to. This is the most open that things have been for somebody who’s in favor right now, and you try to hold that moment and stay in it for as long as you can."

"My ambition has intersected at this moment where I have the experience and knowledge to direct, the opportunity within a franchise to step behind the camera and [the ability] to maximize it by having a production company. It’s my turn to make my impact while I have the energy and strength. I’ve got to tee up the ones that come after, but at the same time hyper-focus on what needs to be done right now. It’s the moment I’ve waited for my entire life. This is it. This can dictate the next 10, 15, 20 years."

"There are roles that I passed on that I knew I didn’t have enough life experience to play. I was like, ‘What can I pull from?’. But I finally found what love was."

"When I was younger, I don’t know if I could have handled the onslaught of opinions and being picked apart, and also being conscious of what the other person’s going to go through. It takes a special person to deal with that."

"When you walk in my room, you can’t look in one direction without seeing storyboards everywhere. When I’m literally in the depths of the room in the far dark corner, I can play this game. Because if I were to play it out here, I would be looking around, like, ‘What am I doing? I’m playing a video game when I should be doing other things.’"

"I’m always willing to prove myself. When you come from where I come from, and everybody doesn’t get those opportunities and breaks — that luck, or whatever — you start to question why you’re getting the things that you get. Why am I successful in life? Or why did I go this way, and everybody went that way? That builds up on you after a while."

"When you come from where I come from, and everybody doesn’t get those breaks, that luck, you start to question, ‘Why am I successful in life? Why did I go this way, and everybody went that way?’"

"Growing up on set, in the industry, over 20 years, and starting out doing background work and extra work and just seeing the sets evolve and seeing everybody’s job and seeing how a real production took place, I finally got to this place in my career where I wanted to tell a story and not just be in front of the camera to execute somebody else’s vision."

"I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of incredible directors, and having a lot of guidance and mentors and people that I look up to, who inspired me to be on that storytelling level. I’ve been quietly watching and putting together these folders of things that I wanna try, for quite some time now. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to step up and get behind the camera."

"My experience being on set, since I was a kid, is having a shorthand with a lot of the crew that have been around throughout my movie career. And I had a clear vision for the story that I wanted to tell, because I’ve been marinating on it and developing it for such a long time. It was the most challenging thing that I’ve ever done, by far. Daily, I was pushing myself to new limits, learning how to communicate and get what’s in your head out, and have other people pick up on that passion and enthusiasm, so that they want to execute your vision to the best of their ability. That’s not an easy task to do."

"I think for me it's just that I was lucky enough to have a lot of work. I'm a firm believer in that what's for you is what's for you, and coming out of that situation — not to give it, you know, any energy and kind of move from that — is you know, it was an experience for me to grow and learn."

"The one thing I don’t want to get is typecast. The first two major roles I have so far, I went from being on a baseball team to being in a gang, and then being a drug dealer. The type roles I get are probably because of the style I have, with the braids and cornrolls. The way I present myself is what will determine the roles I get. I’m trying to switch it up, probably go for the casual look. With the braids out, I should have more options. I’m being thrown urban roles right now, but I don’t plan on doing these my whole life. For right now, it’s going pretty good."

"There are a lot of roles and auditions that call for someone my age. The young people are taking over. They are really coming up the acting industry. There are lots of roles out there but you have to have the right people and the right connections to get called for auditions. You sometimes have to be in the right place at the right time. At the same time, you don’t always have to be in “the business” to get a good break. There are outstanding breakthroughs and “unheard of” actors doing great jobs. You don’t need the connections, but it helps."

"But I think about legacy a lot. What I leave behind is something that I think about a lot."

"For all the success that I’ve had, there’s going to be negative reactions and opinions thrown at me. That just comes with it. When you’re younger, you’re just frustrated, but when you start to realize that this is what it is, you start to understand. I’m never going to make everybody happy. People are always going to have their opinions about me. People can make up something completely false that has no fucking substance or anything, and there’s going to be 100,000 people that are going to believe it and that’s going to be their opinion of me. I can’t do anything about that, and I’ve just got to accept that and keep moving in my purpose. People that know me know my heart. But people that know me for my work . . . they know what I allow them to know. The fact that I’ve been so closed off about a lot of parts of my life was a personal choice. As I’ve gotten older and a little more mature and comfortable in my own skin, I’ve become less concerned about it."

"Everything that I’ve been through—everything that I’ve been taught, all the successes that I’ve had, all the failures that I’ve had, all the wisdom that I was given, I’ve learned from people who have done it before me."

"I’m playing to be autonomous. That’s liberation, because you’re really controlling your own destiny, and it gives you the freedom to make an impact where you see fit. It’s like, ‘All right, I can do what I need to do, when I need to do it, and there’s no asking."

"A great agent doesn’t have to be a great organizer, but a great agent could advocate for relationships with organizers. What we are doing today will make our values heard and our voices heard. We’ve got to keep agitating things. We can’t be complacent. We can’t let this moment just pass us by, we have to continue to put our foot on their necks."