“To be young, Black and successful - and disruptive - in this industry, there’s a certain navigation to get to the place I need to get to.” Photographed By Chrisean Rose

“This is the most open that things have been for somebody who’s in favor right now, and you try to hold that moment and stay in it for as long as you can.”įor Jordan, 34, that means capitalizing on his clout, transitioning to more mature parts as an actor, making his debut as a director on a nearly $400 million studio franchise ( Creed III, in which he also stars) and branching out as a businessman. “To be young, Black and successful - and disruptive - in this industry, there’s a certain navigation to get to the place I need to get to,” he explains. He’s keenly aware that his personal trajectory coincided with a timeline of (relative) racial progress in Hollywood, creating a unique window of opportunity, and it’s part of the reason he’s been so strategic. It’s all been part of a meticulously calibrated strategy to reach this point in his career and his life where he can finally fully control his narrative, his brand, his business. So the setup is coming full force.”įor Jordan, everything that has come before - the two-decade ascent to A-list movie star, with a résumé spanning prestige series ( The Wire) to billion-dollar blockbusters ( Black Panther) - has merely been the setup.

“ is the setup hand for your power punch, but if your power punch is your setup hand, then people are expecting you to throw the bomb here, but it’s really coming with this guy. “Canelo fights orthodox - he fights right-handed - but he’s a lefty, so that means his lead hand is his dominant hand, and it’s so dangerous,” says Jordan, shadow-boxing to demonstrate. Jordan in Denzel Washington's 'A Journal for Jordan': Film Review

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