Earlier than going toe-to-toe in Wakanda, Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan‘s paths nearly crossed in Pine Valley.
All My Kids casting director Judy Blye Wilson not too long ago recalled hiring Jordan to play Reggie Montgomery on the ABC cleaning soap opera again in 2003 after Boseman was fired from the position.
“I did solid Boseman, who turned very well-known, as everyone knows. And he was solely on the present for only a week, as a result of they actually needed the character to be about 16, 15 years outdated,” stated Wilson on the 92Y, in line with Folks.
“[Boseman] had simply come out of Juilliard. He was an impressive actor to audition. And lengthy story brief, they fired him,” she added. “After which I put in Michael B. Jordan, who turned simply as well-known. And he was solely about 15 at the moment. Now, I may go on and on, however I believe I don’t wish to do this.”
In 2020, the late Boseman’s longtime agent Michael Inexperienced claimed that the actor was fired from the cleaning soap after objecting to the writers “perpetuating the stereotypes” of Reggie’s mom being a crackhead and his father having left.
Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan in ‘Black Panther’ (2018) (Matt Kennedy/Marvel/Walt Disney Studios Movement Footage/Courtesy Everett Assortment)
Earlier than Boseman died at age 43 in 2020 from stage III colon most cancers, he mirrored on enjoying Reggie in a 2019 dialog with Jordan for The Wrap.
“It’s a type of issues the place you get a task, and also you don’t actually know,” he defined. “After I obtained it, I used to be like, ‘This isn’t a part of my manifesto. This isn’t a part of what I wish to do. How can I make it work?’ As a result of with a cleaning soap opera, you don’t know the complete scope of what’s gonna occur — you don’t know the place they’re gonna take the character, as a result of they don’t at all times know the place the character goes. And due to that, there’s probably room for me to regulate this and alter it and make it so it’s stereotypical on the web page however not on the display screen.”
After changing Boseman on All My Kids, Jordan performed the position from 2003 to 2006. The pair ultimately labored collectively on 2018’s Black Panther, by which Boseman performed the titular MCU hero and Jordan portrayed villainous Erik Killmonger.
