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- Michael B. Jordan has become a household name thanks to his roles on the big screen.
- The “Black Panther” star didn’t grow up with dreams of being an actor.
- His first TV role was actually on “The Sopranos,” despite many fans thinking it was on “The Wire.”
Actor Michael B. Jordan has become quite a household name over the past two decades.
The 38-year-old has been in the industry since he was a child and has had a number of iconic roles over the years.
Here are a few things you might not know about him.
His first role was on “The Sopranos,” not “The Wire.”
Many people think Jordan’s acting debut was on HBO’s “The Wire.”
Although his role as young, street-smart Wallace launched his career, his first professional credit was a one-off guest appearance on a season-one episode of HBO’s “The Sopranos” when he was 12 years old.
He also appeared on an episode of CBS’ “Cosby” and in the films “Black and White” (1999) and “Hardball” (2001) before beginning his arc on “The Wire” in 2002.
He didn’t let his mom watch the filming of his character’s final scene on “The Wire.”
During a 2018 interview with Vulture, Jordan spoke about filming Wallace’s tragic final scene on “The Wire,” in which the character dies.
“I kind of knew it was coming,” he told the publication. “Especially when you get that knock on your trailer door from David Simon. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘I love you. The audience loves you. We’ve got to kill you. We’ve got to kill you off.'”
“I remember telling my mom not to show up on set that day,” he continued. “My mom gets extremely emotional, and this was kind of too much. I didn’t want her to see it.”
In 2020, he was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive.
In 2020, at 33 years old, the actor was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive. He is the fifth man of color to receive this title.
The “B” in his name stands for Bakari.
Jordan wasn’t named after the famed basketball player, but rather his father, Michael A. Jordan.
The “B” in his name stands for Bakari, which means “promising” in Swahili.
Jordan didn’t initially dream of becoming an actor.
In 2015, Jordan told NJ.com that his mother set his career in motion when she decided to take him to his first commercial audition.
“It wasn’t something that I always wanted to do. But like a lot of kids, you know, I didn’t know what I wanted to be. And modelling, acting, it got me out of school early, got me a chance to go into the city, so I was all into that,” he told the publication.
The actor has a production company that’s aiming to make Hollywood more inclusive.
Jordan’s production company, Outlier Society, is trying to make a change in Hollywood.
In 2018, he vowed to incorporate the “inclusion rider” — a clause that allows actors to contractually demand 50% cast and crew diversity on set — on all his projects.
At the end of that same year, the actor told Vanity Fair, “I want to create projects for Brad Pitt, but at the same time I want to be able to create a movie for Will Smith, or Denzel, or Lupita, or Tessa. It’s gonna be eclectic. It’s gonna be animation. It’s gonna be non-scripted. It’s gonna be digital. It’s gonna be film, television. It’s gonna be video games.”
He’s been in all of director Ryan Coogler’s big movies.
Jordan has starred in all of director Ryan Coogler’s feature-length movies.
The actor played Oscar Grant in the heartbreaking biopic “Fruitvale Station,” the titular character in the “Rocky” sequel “Creed,” and the charismatic villain in “Black Panther.”
Jordan is also the star in Coogler’s recent horror movie, “Sinners.”
“Mike is an incredibly talented experienced actor,” Coogler told MTV News in 2018. “He brings an insane work ethic and a consistency that’s really great to have on a set.”
He’s a big fan of anime.
Jordan has often posted on X about anime, and his favorites seem to be “Naruto” and “Bleach.”
When asked what his guilty pleasure was in a 2014 PopSugar interview, the actor initially wrote “anime” before crossing it out and going with “women.”
Jordan was a voice actor for a major video game.
Jordan voiced Jace Stratton in the 2011 entry of the critically acclaimed video-game franchise “Gears of War 3.”
He bought his parents a house and lived with them for a bit.
In 2015, Jordan bought a house for his parents in Sherman Oaks, California, and he lived with them for a few years. In 2019, he got his own place.
During an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in 2020, the host spoke with him about making the move to his own home about 20 minutes away.
“It happened,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they saged the entire house when I left. Like, they lit incense and bleached it down and got rid of all of me, yes.”
Jordan took tap-dancing lessons at the beginning of his career.
In a 2013 interview with HuffPost, Jordan said he’d do anything to get out of school early as a kid, so when his parents got him into acting around the age of 11, he took on a bunch of hobbies, including tap dancing.
Jordan told the publication, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that age — I was doing everything, playing basketball, acting, tap dancing … “
This story was originally published on February 1, 2019, and most recently updated on April 21, 2025.
