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Michael B. Jordan is grateful for his three-year soap opera stint, as it “opened so many doors” in his acting career.
On Thursday, Nov. 20, the 38-year-old actor was honored at the 39th American Cinematheque Awards. While chatting exclusively with PEOPLE at the event in Beverly Hills, Jordan reflected on his success in Hollywood, admitting that he “didn’t expect” just how much his time on All My Children would impact the trajectory of his career.
Jordan starred in the since-cancelled ABC soap from March 2003 to June 2006, replacing Chadwick Boseman in the role of troubled teenager Reggie Montgomery. The Creed star told PEOPLE one of the biggest surprises of his Hollywood journey is “my time that I spent on soap operas.”
“I never knew how many casting directors and executives in Hollywood would tell me, ‘Oh man, my wife really loves you.’ Or like, ‘Oh, she watches you all the time on the stories. … Come in for this and read for that,’ ” he said.
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Jordan continued: “It opened up so many doors in the most unexpected places for me, and that was… I think looking back at it, that was something that definitely caught me off guard. I didn’t expect that one. So that and The Wire were the two projects that really opened up a lot of doors for me in that sense.”
Jordan also recalled how starring in a soap helped shape his discipline and work ethic as an actor. He said he had to show up every day knowing his lines or “get embarrassed one way or another because it’s going to be airing the next day.”
“I think soap operas, we’re doing a hundred-plus pages a day,” he explained. “The work ethic, the grind of that definitely gave me a built-in work ethic and helped me refine that discipline at an early age. Yeah, definitely.”
Looking ahead to the next chapter in his career, Jordan said he wants to continue to “tell stories” that resonate with people.
“I just want to do honest work, man, and be true to myself and inspire as many people as I can and just tell stories that people can connect with,” he told PEOPLE. “I love movies and I love storytelling, I love acting, so just being able to tell stories that I connect with, and hopefully people will feel that passion and that love and connect with it also.”
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While accepting his American Cinematheque Award, Jordan recalled having “a lot of years” between doing The Wire and his movie career taking off when he was “waiting for the phone” to ring about another job.
“I was hungry for more, curious about my limits,” he said. “Who could I be? Was I a leading man? Did I have what it takes? Those are all questions and doubts and things a young actor has.”
“I didn’t have those answers yet,” he continued, before sharing the mindset that drove his rise in the industry. “When you don’t have those answers, you keep your head down and you do the work. That’s it. That’s the only thing you can really control. So I did. I re-auditioned, I prepared. I already booked it. Every small role, I studied it like it was the lead. I trained. I showed up ready, not just hoping something would happen, but making sure when it did, I was ready to receive it.”
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Jordan concluded his speech by telling the audience, “It’s a blessing to wake up and do what we do every day for a living.”
“Toni Morrison said, ‘If there’s a book you really want to read that hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’ So to the artists, plant your seeds, find your people, build with them. And to the people making decisions about what stories do get told, be bold, take the risk,” he said, adding, “These stories matter.”
