“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”
Latest News: Michael B. Jordan Plays Twins in Sinners
Michael B. Jordan stars in the new horror film Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler. The actor plays twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, who return to their hometown in the 1930s Jim Crow South only to find their community has been overrun by vampires and other supernatural forces. Sinners arrives in theaters April 18.
According to production notes, Jordan developed distinct body movements to differentiate between the two characters, including how they stood and walked. The greatest challenge he faced playing twins was the level of “technicality” involved in filming both Smoke and Stack, he told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I did every scene like four times, fives times, so I think the balance between going back and forth was difficult at times but you find a rhythm and after a while it was second nature,” the 38-year-old said. “I had a lot of fun.”
Who Is Michael B. Jordan?
Actor and director Michael B. Jordan is known for his work in Fruitvale Station and the Creed movie franchise. After landing his first major roles in the landmark TV shows The Wire and Friday Night Lights, Jordan garnered acclaim for his riveting performance in the film festival favorite Fruitvale Station in 2013. He later wowed audiences with his portrayal of boxing protégé Adonis Johnson in the 2015 movie Creed, reprising his role in 2018’s Creed II and 2023’s Creed III. Jordan also graced the big screen in the wildly successful Marvel superhero flick Black Panther and later returned for the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Michael Bakari Jordan BORN: February 9, 1987 BIRTHPLACE: Santa Ana, California ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius
Early Life
Michael Bakari Jordan was born on February 9, 1987, in Santa Ana, California. His father, Michael A. Jordan, owned a catering business, and his mother, Donna Jordan, worked as a guidance counselor. When Jordan was 2 years old, his family moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. He has an older sister, Jamila, and a younger brother, Khalid.
Jordan grew up in what he has described as a “tough neighborhood” riddled with gangs and drugs. A spirited child, he enjoyed pulling pranks, like setting toilet paper on fire, but managed to stay out of trouble.
At the age of 11, he broke into the entertainment industry as a child model. Encouraged by a receptionist at his mother’s doctor’s office, the preteen began appearing in local ads for Kmart and Toys “R” Us.
Along the way, he also started auditioning for commercials and TV shows. His first break came in 1999 when he landed two small roles in Cosby, Bill Cosby’s sitcom, and The Sopranos, starring James Gandolfini. Two years later, at age 14, Jordan’s acting career took off just as he was starting high school. He attended Newark Arts High School, where he played basketball, and graduated in 2005.
Movies and TV Shows
Jordan, who is 6 feet tall, has had steady work in Hollywood since 2001. Much of his early career was spent on TV shows, though he booked films along the way. His first principal role in a movie was for 2001’s Hardball. Starring Keanu Reeves and Diane Lane, the movie tells the story of an inner-city youth baseball team. Jordan played Jamal, the oldest kid on the team, and his performance raised his profile as a young actor.
The Wire and All My Children
In 2002, he scored a recurring role on HBO’s crime drama series The Wire. His time on the landmark show lasted just one season, but his riveting portrayal of the caring, soft-spoken Wallace ended his struggles to find consistent television and film work.
While Jordan was “devastated” about being killed off the show at the time, the role “paved the way” for his career, he told GQ in February 2025. “When I would go audition for things, casting directors and executives and producers and things of that nature, that was one of their favorite shows,” he said. “So it definitely showed me a lot of love in future projects.”
Michael B. Jordan, seen here around age 16, began acting as a 12-year-old.Getty Images
In 2003, Jordan was tapped as a regular cast member on the soap opera All My Children. During his three-year stint on the show, Jordan netted three NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series. He also earned a Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Favorite Teen.
After leaving the soap in 2006, Jordan stayed busy. He landed a role in the 2007 indie film Blackout and made appearances in a host of television shows, including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, CSI, and Cold Case, among others.
Friday Night Lights
Jordan’s next significant break came in 2009 when he was cast to play star quarterback Vince Howard in the Emmy-winning series Friday Night Lights. His performance impressed fans of the series and served notice to critics that he was an actor to keep an eye on.
Jordan delivered again with a recurring role in the TV series Parenthood. From 2010 to 2011, he played Haddie Braverman’s teenage love interest. He went on to score roles in the World War II film Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airmen, and the superhero flick The Chronicle, both released in 2012.
Fruitvale Station
Jordan received mountains of critical praise for his 2013 performance in the Ryan Coogler–directed feature Fruitvale Station. The film, based on a true story, saw Jordan play the starring role of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Black man killed by police while at an Oakland, California, train station.
Oscar Grant’s 2009 killing sparked local demonstrations and the 2013 movie Fruitvale Station.Getty Images
For his compelling performance, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. “It’s mixed emotions. Just the fact we have to tell the story of a young man who lost his life the way he did, somebody that could have been me,” he said of his nomination to the Los Angeles Times. “But also that people are affected by the work, that it really has people thinking, feels like a victory in my book.”
From there, Jordan starred alongside Zac Efron in the 2014 comedy That Awkward Moment and portrayed the Human Torch in 2015’s Fantastic Four.
Creed
Sylvester Stallone reenergized his Rocky franchise with the Creed movies, starring Michael B. Jordan.Getty Images
In late 2015, Jordan teamed up again with director Coogler for Creed, the latest chapter of Sylvester Stallone’s long-running Rocky franchise. Jordan played boxer Adonis Johnson, the unknown son of Rocky’s late rival and friend, Apollo Creed. The newcomer, an accomplished high school athlete, trained vigorously for the movie. Jordan spent more than a year preparing for the role, training with boxers, and embarking on a strict diet.
Upon its release, Oscar talk immediately began to swirl around the film, cementing Jordan’s status as a Hollywood star. Still, the actor set his eyes on expanding his career even further: “I want to make that move from actor to producer, like Will Smith,” he said. Jordan eventually made that jump the next year.
Jordan stepped back into the ring for Creed II in 2018, which pitted Adonis Johnson against the son of Dolph Lungren’s Ivan Drago, the massive Russian boxer who pummeled Apollo Creed to death in 1985’s Rocky IV.
In 2023, Jordan again reprised his role as Adonis and made his directorial debut for Creed III, which earned him his first NAACP Image Award nomination for directing. Jordan is set to star in and direct the latest chapter in the franchise, Creed IV, which is currently in development without a definitive release date.
Black Panther
Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman starred in Black Panther together.Getty Images
After the success of Creed, Jordan was tapped by an even bigger franchise: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He played arch-villain Erik Killmonger in the superhero feature Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman in the titular role. The movie was a resounding success, pushing $1 billion in global ticket sales within three weeks of its February 2018 release and shattering stereotypes about the limits of marketing a mostly Black cast. It ended the year as the second-highest-grossing movie worldwide.
He later reprised his role as Killmonger in the animated Marvel series What If…? in 2021 and again in the 2022 sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which earned roughly $860 million at the global box office.
Fahrenheit 451 and Just Mercy
In 2018, Jordan starred in and executive produced an adaptation of the Ray Bradbury classic Fahrenheit 451. While the film drew mostly tepid reviews, his work as a producer earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Television Movie. The actor’s ambitions only grew from there.
Michael B. Jordan portrayed Bryan Stevenson, left, in the movie adaptation of the lawyer’s memoir.Getty Images
Jordan was next seen on the big screen as acclaimed civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson in the 2019 legal drama Just Mercy. Also featuring notable performances by Jaime Foxx and Brie Larson, the film is based on the true story of a case early in Stevenson’s career, when he successfully appealed the conviction of a Black man for the 1986 murder of a young white woman in Alabama. The movie drew from Stevenson’s 2014 memoir of the same name.
Gen:Lock
Next, Jordan returned to TV. He was next cast in the animated sci-fi series Gen:Lock as the voice of Julian Chase, a pilot missing most of his body who is recruited to test a giant suit of armor. The series ran for two seasons, ending in 2021.
Jordan also had a minor part in the Netflix superhero series Raising Dion, about a boy who inherits superpowers. The actor portrayed the titular character’s seemingly deceased father, mostly through flashbacks.
Without Remorse and Sequel
Jordan next starred in the 2021 action flick Without Remorse, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. He played John Kelly, a Navy SEAL who seeks revenge for the murder of his pregnant wife and uncovers an international conspiracy in the process. While the movie received mixed reviews for the overall plot, Jordan was praised for his performance. The actor is set to reprise his role in the upcoming sequel, Rainbow Six.
Elsewhere in 2021, Jordan appeared in an episode of the anthology series Love, Death & Robots and had a brief cameo as himself in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Sinners
Jordan’s latest project, Sinners, arrives in theaters in April 2025. In the horror movie, directed by his longtime collabortor Ryan Coogler, Jordan plays twin brothers who return to their hometown in the 1930s Jim Crow-era South only to find their community has been overrun by vampires. Jordan developed distinct body movements to differentiate between the two characters, including how they stood and walked.
Looking ahead, the actor is slated to star in the long-awaited sequel I Am Legend 2, as well as a reimagining of The Thomas Crown Affair, which he will also direct.
Relationships
Over the years, Jordan has been romantically linked with various famous women, such as reality star Kendall Jenner and actor Kikki Layne. Yet, he has only publicly confirmed his past relationship with model Lori Harvey, the daughter of Family Feud host Steve Harvey. Jordan and Harvey reportedly started dating in November 2020 after meeting through mutual friends. They made their relationship Instagram official two months later, in January 2021.
That April, the actor, who has long kept quiet about his dating history, told People why he finally decided to go public with his love life. “I’m still private, and I want to protect that, but it just felt like it was a moment of just wanting to put it out there and move on,” he said. “I am extremely happy.”
Michael B. Jordan dated Lori Harvey for about a year and a half before the couple split in June 2022.Getty Images
The following year, in March 2022, the couple made their red carpet debut together at Vanity Fair’s Oscars afterparty. Just a few months later, however, Jordan and Harvey called it quits, breaking up in June after a year and a half of dating. When Jordan appeared on Saturday Night Live in January 2023, he publicly mentioned the breakup for the first time and announced that he was single.
In an interview with GQ in February 2025, he revealed he’s not in any hurry to get into another serious relationship. “I’m not tripping over it,” Jordan said. “I’m so work-focused. I would want somebody to fit into the flow of my life, of where I am.”
Net Worth
As of February 2025, Jordan has an estimated net worth of $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. In addition to acting and directing, he is a partial owner of the English football club AFC Bournemouth.
In 2016, he used some of his cash to create his own production company, Outlier Society. Its most notable project to date is Creed III, and it has signed on to develop a TV show based on the popular romantic fantasy novel Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
Notably, two years after founding Outlier, Jordan announced in an Instagram post (that has since been removed) that he would incorporate inclusion riders for all projects made by his company. These contractural clauses—which Frances McDormand’s touted in her 2018 Oscar speech—allow actors to demand diversity among the cast and crew on set.
Quotes
I’m a comic book guy, I grew up reading comics and graphic novels and being fans of those worlds.
I want to play a villain so bad, just a villain. I’ve been playing the good guys, and that’s cool, but just to play a villain that’s so opposite of who I am.
After it’s a wrap, there’s not much you can do about it. Just gotta ride the wave and take everything as it comes. That’s the best way, I think, to handle it.
I’m competitive. I’m not competitive with actors. I’m just competitive with myself. I want to get better.
I want to do everything. I’m a producer at heart. Eventually, when I can produce the way I want to, my acting’s going to help fuel that.
Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us!
