‘Creed III’ Exclusive: Michael B. Jordan And Jonathan Majors Address Having To Defend Their Blackness — Both On And Off Camera

The wait is nearly over. CREED III lands in theatres Friday and our Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with the film’s stars Jonathan Majors and Michael B. Jordan about working together on this epic blockbuster.

Jonathan Majors And Michael B. Jordan Discuss Pressure From The Black Community

If you’ve watched the trailer for Creed III, you already know the movie centers on Adonis Creed and his relationship with Damian Anderson, an old friend from foster care and his early boxing days who was recently released from prison. At times in the film, Damian questions both Adonis’ blackness and his manhood. In some ways, the pressure Adonis feels from Damian seems to mirror the way the Black community creates expectations for its stars — including Majors and Jordan, so we had to ask them about that dynamic.

“I think there’s a big thing to the fact that we are not monoliths,” Jonathan Majors told GlobalGrind. “There are a lot of similarities between Michael B. Jordan and myself, but there are a lot of things that are not the same — some pretty pivotal things. We both are sitting here together. We both represent certain parts of the culture and yet the same parts of the culture. There’s a certain social contract that I feel that I have to the culture but it’s how I view the culture. But I’m an individual within the culture. I can only live my life and do my thing the best way that I can. I’m not trying to first and foremost, disrespect my Mama and my grandparents. That’s where I draw the line. It’s always for the homies I just hope that the homies are for us.

“There’s two different sides of a conversation but both are needed for a conversation,” Michael B. Jordan told GlobalGrind. “Like Jonathan was saying, we’re the same, but we’re different. But in spirit, we’ve got the same cause. We have the same goal in mind and we need each other in order to achieve that goal. This movie represents a little bit of that. I think it’s probably the most personal movie so far. The only character I’ve played three times. Doint this the last 8-9 years of my life, the last 8-9 years of my life I grew a lot and went through a lot of things and a lot of similar things that Adonis was going through, so this project was probably very therapeutic to me on a lot of different levels.

Source: Michael Buckner / Getty

Michael B. Jordan Loved Playing A #GirlDad In ‘Creed III’

The latest iteration of the Creed franchise finds Adonis at the end of his boxing career, looking forward to spending more time with his wife Bianca raising their daughter Amara. For Jordan, who also directed the film, Adonis and Amara’s relationship was vital to the project.

“It was great,” Jordan told GlobalGrind. “In boxing you have a lot of father/sons, traditionally. I have a lot of men in my life [with daughters], my brother Jonathan here has a daughter, my barber Job has two daughters, my dad has a daughter. Kobe Bryant, Jamie Foxx, two of my mentors. Sadly, Kobe and Gianna, when he coined what that #GirlDad thing meant it made me feel good. I really wanted Adonis to have a daughter so he could pass information on and put her on game. All those visuals that we saw I thought it was needed for the next generation. It was awesome, it felt good.”

If you haven’t bought tickets yet for Creed III we highly suggest you get on that. The film arrives in theatres Friday, March 3, 2023 and you don’t want to miss it.