Sinners' Michael B Jordan says 'it's too painful to say out loud' in regretful admission

View 3 Images

He may be up for an Academy Award for best actor, but Sinners' Michael B Jordan still agonises about choices that he has made in his craft.

Playing the dual role of identical twin brothers in Ryan Coogler’s smash hit supernatural thriller meant that he would shoot each scene twice. Once the first take was in the can, Michael would then have to live with the spirit of that performance as he played “opposite himself” in the second version of the scene. “You can't go back,” he told the In The Envelope podcast. “You’d be like, damn, why didn't I think about that s•••? Damn. You get those moments of opportunity or a moment that you can't get back.”

He says that only in the most extreme cases would he insist on going back and re-shooting the original take. “I know what that means from a director's standpoint of how tough that is. So I try my hardest never to do that,” he added.

Michael adds that sometimes, even though it can be “painful,” he forces himself to keep quiet about some of his ideas. He continued: “And then some of the stuff, man, honestly, with all the cast and everybody and all the elements that are in that moment that only happens when cameras are rolling, that's where the magic happens. Yeah, there's sometimes you just can't, and you gotta, I've never even spoken out loud. I just keep it to myself, and it's actually too painful to say it out loud.”

View 3 Images

Michael has undertaken a huge variety of roles in his career, starting out in TV dramas such as The Wire, before dipping into soap opera with All My Children and then really making waves as quarterback Vince Howard in hit sports drama Friday Night Lights.

He emerged unscathed from critical and commercial misfire Fantastic Four in 2014 and reunited with director Ryan Coogler, who had previously worked with him on 2013’s Fruitvale Station, for the Rocky spinoff Creed. That film earned awards for both director and star, and the pair reunited a year later for Marvel blockbuster Black Panther.

Alongside his burgeoning film career, Michael has an unlikely sideline in the world of sport – not only investing in the Alpine F1 Team alongside fellow actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, but also being announced in December 2022 as part owner of Premier League side AFC Bournemouth.

View 3 Images

Having won for his dual role in Sinners at the highly influential Actor Awards earlier this month, Michael is considered a “shoo-in” for the Academy Awards. He’s pitted against Leonardo Di Caprio, Ethan Hawke and Wagner Moura – all of whom are seen as having delivered respectable but unspectacular performances in their most recent movies – as well as Timothée Chalamet, whose Oscars campaign backfired massively after he dismissed the fields of ballet and opera as artforms that “no-one cares” about.

Michael’s humble responses shortly after the Oscar nominations were announced were seen as a refreshing contrast to Chalamet’s self-aggrandising overconfidence.