Michael B. Jordan Will No Longer Play Characters Who Die

Michael B. Jordan has reached a point in his career where he can set non-negotiable conditions for the roles he plays. One of those is to no longer accept roles where his character dies. 

According to US Weekly, during the Just Mercy press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival, the actor explained that his mother’s reaction to seeing him “die” on screen in some of his most famous roles — from Oscar Grant in Fruitvale Station to Killmonger in Black Panther — inspired him to make the decision.

“I never thought about what my mom went through seeing her son die so many times and how she would cry so hard and it would tear me up, and when I got older and matured and started looking at things, I was like, ‘Man, I can’t do this anymore,'” he said. “Part of the reason why I almost refused a lot of roles [was] because I can’t die anymore.”

Jordan added that he wants the audience to see him live: “I want for me, as a character, I want to survive all three acts. I want people to watch me right into the credits.”

Giving an outlook some may overlook, he stressed that it was important for him to take a stand because the audience eventually “gets conditioned to seeing you die” when it’s a regular occurrence.

“You want to be able to put those heroic tones in it, depending on, you know, leading man,” he said. “That’s kind of what I was going for, so it was strategic to walk away from some of those roles and start living.”