Marvel Studios/Disney(NEW YORK) — After portraying heroes in Creed and Fantastic Four, Michael B. Jordan says he had to go “to a dark place” to play the villain in Marvel’s Black Panther.
The 30-year old actor stars as Erik Killmonger, who battles the Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman, to rule the fictional African nation of Wakanda.
Jordan’s character is an exile of the country who returns and attempts to overthrow Black Panther. They have fierce hand to hand battles, and Jordan says his evil attitude on set remained with him.
“Honestly, I can’t really go through all I went through to get into it because I want to keep that close to me,” Jordan tells EmpireOnLine.com. “But it stuck with me afterwards.”
The film marks a reunion of Jordan with director Ryan Coogler, who he worked with on Creed and Fruitvale Station. This was his first time working with Boseman, and he has great admiration for the actor who recently starred in Marshall.
“Chadwick’s a very talented dude,” Jordan says. “There’s a lot of physical moments and action sequences throughout this film that cause us to really challenge ourselves, and also fall deeper into character.”
Jordan believes Black Panther is a movie than will appeal to all races.
“It’s an all-black cast for the most part,” Jordan says “and it’s set in Africa, but it’s universal in so many ways to everybody around the world, so I feel like it’s something that everybody can take something from.”
Black Panther also stars Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya and Letitia Wright. The film opens on February 16, 2018 from Marvel and Disney, parent company of ABC News.
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