'Sinners' star Michael B. Jordan drops his clever hack to winning Oscar

Michael B. Jordan has revealed one habit that helped him play Oscar-winning roles after his recent victory.

During a Q&A session at the Governors Ball, the official after-party of the Academy Awards, Jodan opened up about one simple habit that helps him get into the character.

He shared, "I write a lot of journals for my characters, like backstories. So I try to go from, like, the earliest memory that I can conjure up and think of, and I write all the way up to the first page of the script.”

"So, it at least gives me an opportunity to kind of figure out like, you know, where they're coming from, and that informs a lot of their decisions," the Oscar-winning actor explained.

Notably, this comes after Jordan won the Best Actor Award at the 98th Academy Awards.

Jordan, who played Stack and Smoke in Sinners, said he "did a lot of chakra work" in order to differentiate between both characters and unfold their childhood trauma.

"Smoke is a bit more, you know, he's quiet, he's a protector, and Stack is a little bit more light and buoyant, and a little bit of a slick talker and a troublemaker. So, I try to establish different perspectives,” he highlighted.

The Blank Panther star went on to note that he defined Smoke and Stack’s relationship and their personality differences by building out their shared history.

"How many times they would argue, how many times they would keep score on who's right and who's wrong. You know, all these things I kind of just started to build up so they could have a history between each other. And those are the things that hopefully came to light in between the lines, those nuances between the two,” Jordan elaborated.

It is pertinent to mention that the 2025 horror-action film Sinners secured four Oscars, as Ryan Coogler won the Best Original Screenplay Award, Ludwig Göransson earned Best Original Score, Michael B. Jordan took home the Best Actor Award, and Autumn Durald Arkapaw was the winner of the Best Cinematography Award.