After Fruitvale Station, Michael B. Jordan told his agents that he doesn't want to go for any roles "written for African-Americans in the breakdown."
In Variety‘s "Actors on Actors" interview with Issa Rae, Jordan explained his decision for the change.
"I said 'I don’t want it. I want to only go for, like, [roles written for] white males. That’s it,'" he said. "Me playing that role is going to make it what it is. I don’t want any pre-bias...on the character. People sometimes, writers write what they know...their encounter with us would be and that's a slight bias into the character." Instead, like when he played Steve Montgomery in Chronicle, which is a role originally intended for a white male, was so important for him. "It was just playing people," he said.
Jordan told Rae about the change after she revealed how the success of Black Panther inspired her to go for new roles around the 10:30 mark.
"If it were a leading woman of a certain type, I just knew the type that they would go for so I was like 'I'm not even gonna bother,'" she said. "And so now something has shifted where I'm like 'Fuck that, yeah I'm gonna go after that'"
The move seems to be working for both actors. Jordan landed a role as the Human Torch in 2015's Fantastic Four and is starring in Fahrenheit 451. After starring in The Hate U Give and Little, she'll work on Empress of Serenity with Bill Hader.
