It has been said that they don’t make movie stars like they used to. Not that long ago, one of the things that often drove people to the theater was the cast of a given movie. It mattered less what the movie was about than it did who was in it. Today, Tom Cruise is perhaps one of the few remaining names that can draw people into a movie theater on his own, but Michael B. Jordan is following in those footsteps. And he’s getting great advice on how to do that from another A-list movie star.
One of the reasons that the traditional movie star may be on the decline is that, in the era of the internet and social media, we see so much of most actors’ lives that there is little mystery left to them. Michael B. Jordan has made a concerted effort to retain some of that mystique by intentionally avoiding overexposure. He spoke to Vulture about key advice from Denzel Washington, who told him…
Why would they pay to see you on a weekend if they see you all week for free?
There’s certainly some logic to the assertion. If part of what makes a movie star special is that we don’t see them often, then overexposure can certainly destroy that. To continue the Tom Cruise example, the actor has only embraced social media comparatively recently, and even then, his posts are focused on promoting his work; we don’t see every aspect of his personal life the way we do with some.
Michael B. Jordan’s private life hasn’t been entirely private. His relationship with Lori Harvey was largely in the public eye, but that ended a couple of years ago, and since then, we’ve seen and heard very little about Jordan’s relationships. It certainly seems he’s taking Denzel’s words to heart. While there have been rumors of who Jordan is dating, there are always rumors surrounding movie stars when there is little fact, Tom Cruise and Denzel certainly know what that’s like too.
For what it’s worth, the strategy appears to be working. Michael B. Jordan’s newest collaboration with director Ryan Coogler, Sinners, has been one of the biggest surprise hits of the 2025 release calendar. It’s hard to say how much of that success came from the star power of Jordan, but in an era when so many movies have trouble finding an audience, the fact that Sinners was a hit was certainly a big deal for Jordan.
In one way, Michael B. Jordan has already reached the heights of the major movie stars. Tom Cruise himself boosted the profile of Sinners when it hit theaters, and Jordan attended the premiere of Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning in response.