Michael B. Jordan has been anointed one of Hollywood's A-List actors after starring in blockbusters like Black Panther and Creed. Before the box office smashes, Jordan showed his big screen potential in 2013's Fruitvale Station. Jordan's portrayal of Oscar Grant III moved audiences, but it also almost stunted his growth as an actor.
Jordan explained to an audience at Saturday's Produced By conference how his performance as the police brutality victim ushered in a swarm of scripts asking him to participate in other biopics. "Every historical black figure have come across my desk," Jordan claimed.
While having an abundance of roles in a blessing for most actors, Jordan realized that he can't be the only actor that plays these characters. "As much as I would love to play all of them, I can’t," he explained.
This awareness goes hand-in-hand with the content Jordan wants to create through his Outlier Society production company. Along with the President of Production Development, Alana Mayo, Jordan explained how Outlier intends to produce projects that are an accurate representation of the human experience.
"We struggle with the happy, mindless entertainment that doesn’t feel like it has some sort of substance to it and sometimes we just want to hit an issue that I think the both of us will continue to make content about, until we feel like we start to see the impact and the change in the real world," Mayo said.
Jordan then went on to detail how their work will mirror the roles he's taken throughout his career. Through Outlier, Mayo and Jordan want to prove that both fun and socially aware films can be impactful.
"We try to balance that as much as you can, to run a company where it’s not its entire identity but, at the same time, it’s an important silo and something that we care about," Jordan said in regards to their focus on inclusively. "I don’t want it to be just a Black film, but a high caliber piece of work that people don’t see that often."
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