It is no secret that the man who created Rocky had plenty of reservations, at least at first, when the young director Ryan Coogler presented him with the idea of Creed, a reimagining and extension of the franchise that Stallone hadn't been looking for. One reservation was whether the actor Coogler was proposing to play Apollo Creed's son, Michael B. Jordan, could possibly be up to the challenge that Stallone knew would be ahead of him. But once they started, Stallone was soon won over.
"Michael Jordan is an extraordinary athlete," Stallone says, "and he has those skills that very, very few actors have, his great kinetic mobility. It was very apparent in the first couple of days in the ring that he had great hand-eye coordination, and then the next time I saw him, about three months later, I couldn't believe it: his back, he had doubled his size, his trapezius, his upper back was spot-on as the kind of musculature a serious fighter would have. And his legs … I mean, he literally became a specimen to be reckoned with."
Coogler tells me that as Jordan trained and became Adonis Creed, the boxer, they decided to model his boxing style on one particular fighter: "We kind of settled on this boxer named Timothy Bradley—he's from Southern California and has a pretty wild and unorthodox style that's really visual, you know. He's kind of a brawler, you know. He's small. And we wanted Adonis to kind of feel like that, because he's a character who basically kind of taught himself how to box."
And as rough as the physical work was, Jordan says that was the large part of the role's appeal—and also of other similarly transformative roles he hopes to have in the future. "That's the fun part," he says. "I can't wait to lose weight for a role. Like, a lot. I can't wait to gain a lot of weight for a role. Change the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you breathe. You stand different. It just changes everything."
Still, Coogler emphasizes that there is far more to Jordan's performance than just his physicality. "You'll see a vulnerability to Mike that you haven't seen yet. Mike always kind of plays complex characters and he'll always make a character that's not as complex on paper even more complex through his performance, but this character is very different from what you're used to seeing from Mike. And in a way that I don't want to give away, you know?"
I ask Stallone what he taught, or passed onto, Jordan. I was thinking principally in terms of learning the lessons of how to live within the Rocky universe, but the answer Stallone gives is much broader than that, and all the more interesting for it.
"Well, it was never anything that was intentionally taught or not. I just said to him: 'Don't make certain mistakes that I made, and perhaps many other performers make, in thinking that this is eternal, and movies will be something that will always be at your disposal. Each opportunity is one less opportunity you will ever get, and even though you're tired, you're weary, you may be so exasperated that you want to just get the scene over with—don't. It'll come back to haunt you. This moment is only gonna come this one day, and then it's gone. Because we don't exist. This is magic, this is something that is man-made and tomorrow it doesn't exist—we don't exist, the character doesn't exist, the scene doesn't exist, none of this reality. It's gone. So you'd better hit it hard now or you're going to regret it when you're bouncing your grandkids on your knee, looking back on TV, going 'Why didn't I try harder?'"
And how did he respond to that?
He goes, "Man…"—it was almost a, a physical affirmation, nodding his head— "…I get that, man, I get that." And sure enough, he pushed himself to… I don't know what his breaking point is, but he pushed himself right to hitting the edge. I saw him eventually physically collapse after the fighting. Because I knew that this is a syndrome that happens, it happened to me five times, which is: you hold on, and you try to keep it together, and you're pushed and pushed and pushed physically to continue to do it over and over and over and without rest for days on end, and then finally when it's done, the body automatically relinquishes itself and somewhat collapses. It goes into complete exhaustion mode. But it's really extraordinary how he kept it going and held it together until he accomplished his goal—and then his body just said, "I'm outta here, I need a break." I spoke to him about that; he goes, "Aw, so you went through it too?" I said, "Absolutely, that means it's a job well done. If you can't get out of bed the next day, you know you've done your job." I guess he took it to heart because he just performed unbelievably well—he was pushed harder than any actor I had ever seen pushed, in just physical stamina. And I mean that.
What was it was like when the two of you acted together?
It was kind of like a very strange bonding between two individuals that are I think are quite physical, at least to people's first impression, but we really connected on an emotional level—very, very much so. We would talk to each other off-camera about very personal situations and about families and so on. It was definitely not a business arrangement, it was an emotional arrangement.
Even though you're from very different generations and backgrounds, you felt you had a lot in common?
Yeah, because I kind of understood what phase of his life he's entering. And I would explain to him the journeys that I've taken. So he kind of got an insight into what lies ahead. And I kind of got a refresher course of what it's like to be young.
