Black Panther may have been the highest-grossing movie in the US USA In 2018, and it could be said that it is the most pleasing to the public, but that does not mean that it has been easy to work on it. Michael B. Jordan has put on the table the mental load the production had on him, and why he entered psychological therapy after filming.
Michael B. Jordan took on the role of supervillain Erik Killmonger so well, pitting himself against the Black Panther played by Chadwick Boseman, in director Marvel Coop’s adaptation of Marvel Comics, that he managed to convince himself and the public of how bad it could be. The charismatic and terrifying villain managed to delve into Michael B. Jordan’s psyche, so much so that it was one of the highlights of the entire film. But Jordan, 31, entered a personally dark place on the way to get there.
“I was alone, isolating myself,” Michael B. Jordan told Oprah Winfrey during an interview on the segment called “SuperSoul Conversations.” Winfrey had asked him what he was inspired by and how he came to have that unpleasant personality embodied in Killmonger.
“I spent a lot of time alone,” said Jordan. “I imagined Erik, his childhood was quite lonely. I didn’t have many people to talk to about this place called Wakanda that for the world didn’t exist. ”
He delved into the psychology of his character, something that is quite common among the actors, but that seems to have overflowed in the specific case of Michael B. Jordan.
“Of course, it is an extreme and exaggerated version of the African diaspora from the African-American perspective, to be able to take that kind of pain and anger and all those emotions that Erik represents from being black or brown in the United States. .. That was something I didn’t take lightly, “said Jordan.
“I didn’t have a method,” said Michael B. Jordan about embodying the character. “I just did what I felt I needed to do or what I felt I had to do at the time of a part of the movie, it was step by step along the long road.”
But at the end of each scene, “I didn’t have an escape plan either,” added the Creed actor. “When it was all over, I think just being in that very negative type of mental state … It caught up with me.”
Seeing a therapist to overcome feelings at the time “helped me a lot,” said Michael B. Jordan. It was the last instance, it was about being myself again. “Readjusting myself to the people who care about me, obtaining the love that I have put aside… I closed myself to love, I didn’t want love. I wanted to be in this lonely place as long as I could. ”
And the Black Panther actor has no time for people who stigmatize others who seek professional psychological help. “As a man, you have a lot of stigma to talk about it,” Jordan told Winfrey. “I’m not really one of those who is against psychological therapy. Everyone needs to take their mental issues out and talk to a professional. “