Black Panther actor, Michael B. Jordan has revealed how he lost his true self just to play the role of the villain in the movie. The actor stated that he took himself through a dark place to the point that he had to seek therapy to deprogram him from the character and to regain his normal self again after shooting the movie.
In a chat with Oprah Winfrey, Michael B. Jordan opened up on his return to his normal self.
“I went to therapy, I started talking to people, starting unpacking a little bit. [It] helped me out a lot…It was a little tough for me at first. Readjusting to people caring about me, getting that love that I shut out. I shut out love, I didn’t want love. I wanted to be in this lonely place as long as I could.”
On how he worked on himself to become the villain Killmonger:
“I spent a lot of time alone. I figured Erik [Killmonger], his childhood growing up was pretty lonely. He didn’t have a lot of people he could talk to about this place called Wakanda that didn’t exist.”
He continued:
“Of course it’s an extreme, exaggerated version of the African diaspora from the African-American perspective, so to be able to take that kind of pain and rage and all those emotions that Erik kind of represents from being black and brown here in America … that was something I didn’t take lightly. When it was all over, I think just being in that kind of mind state … it caught up with me.”
On why he recommends therapy:
“Your mind is so powerful. Your mind will get your body past a threshold that it would have given up on way before. Honestly, therapy, just talking to somebody just helped me out a lot. As a man you get a lot of slack for it…I don’t really subscribe to that. Everyone needs to unpack and talk.“