Michael B. Jordan has looked back at the films that shaped him as an artist.
In a new conversation with Deadline, the Creed star opened up about the two movies that have stayed with him the most over the years.
"Two come to mind right away. Denzel Washington in The Hurricane. And The Beach, with Leo DiCaprio," he began.
He went on to reflect on how certain performances and genres sparked his curiosity as a young actor and gradually pushed him toward the craft.
"Those performances stuck out with me. Se7en was a movie that really stuck with me, and Indiana Jones and the Batman films. James Bond. Big, big, big action and adventure and all those twists and turns," he said, noting that he had not initially set out to pursue acting at all.
"When I started, I didn’t know I wanted to be an actor, really, but then I started to fall in love with it, and I got good at it. I got a lot of early success when I was younger, thank god. And then I started to become more of a student."
Moreover, Jordan added that international cinema expanded his understanding of what storytelling could be.
"Foreign films like A Prophet changed my view of what was possible in cinema. Projects like that, actors, influenced me to try to figure out how to do that. Probably around the time of The Wire, I was deciding this was going to be my one and only plan and I was going to be all in."
The actor recalled moving from TV ensembles to films while wrestling with the internal pressure of defining the kind of performer he wanted to become.
"I was doing all these television series, part of an ensemble cast and then came films. And I’m having this inner dialogue and anxiety. You try to figure out what kind of actor you want to be, or you could be, and then what could you be if things don’t work out in your favor," he explained in conclusion.
