Even though he’s making the promotional ruounds for his blockbuster film “Creed II,” Michael B. Jordan talked about “Black Panther” and how playing the role of Erik Killmonger left him feeling depressed
That’s because in order to play the villain, Jordan had to visit some dark emotional places, and then when the film wrapped it was hard for him to come out of it.
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“I haven’t talked that much about it,” he said on The Bill Simmons Podcast. “It was one of those things that I didn’t know what was going on. I never was in a character for that long of a period of time and was that dark, that lonely, that painful.”
“So coming out of it I thought business as usual,” Jordan continued. “I could just go back home, cut my hair off and everything would be back to normal. But I found myself kind of in the routine of being isolated and went out of my way to make sure I was by myself and didn’t say too much. More than the usual.”
So to feel better, Jordan decided to seek therapy, which really helped him.
“Once I got finished wrapping the movie, it took me some time to talk through what I was feeling and why I was feeling so sad and depressed after the movie,” he stated. “I talked to a therapist a few times.”
Being around loved ones helped too, said Jordan. Plus, he forced himself to become less isolated and open up more.
“[It] took about a month of just getting back to doing regular things, being around my friends and family,” he explained. “Just really being present. Not just being in the room but being present and engaging and talking things out that I never really talked through. It was healthy.”
But the actor also said he has not regrets about how he approached the Killmonger role, because he was willing to make the emotional sacrifices to push himself. Especially since he never played a villain like that before.
“I kind of wanted to see what I was made of,” he said. “How far I would go, what it would take to do my version of that and yeah, I found out.”
