Michael B. Jordan Discusses Being An Ambassador For Sprite Films (+ How You Can Get Involved!)

We’ve all had our eyes on actor Michael B. Jordan for some time now, heightened tremendously in 2013 when he starred as Oscar Grant in the extremely powerful and critically acclaimed film, Fruitvale Station. The star of the upcoming Fantastic Four movie (coming June 2015) has been pretty busy this year, filming for F4, acting alongside Zac Efron and Miles Teller in one 2014’s funniest comedies, That Awkward Moment, and partnering with Sprite as their 2014 Sprite Films student filmmaker mentor and program ambassador. In his role, Mike has helped to mentor a handful of undergrad and graduate aspiring filmmakers, who’ve collectively produced 6 50-second films for the Sprite Films program – one of which will ultimately win and go on to run in select theaters nationwide in August (with MBJ starring in the trailer) – and YOU can help choose who wins! View the films and vote for your favorite video now here. Voting ends TODAY so get to it!

IFWT recently chopped it up with Michael, and got the inside scoop on his partnership with the Sprite Films challenge, as well some pearls of wisdom Michael shared with the contestants…and that he himself has received from the likes of Oprah, Forrest Whitaker and more! Check out what he had to say below.

So you started your partnership with Sprite and there’s now 6 finalists with 50-second videos. So, even though there’s only 6, were you influenced by any of them – any of the groups in particular that you were working with?
Yeah. There’s only 6 finalists, but they’re producers, directors, so they’re in groups of 2. So, I got a chance to talk to about 12 students or so, and they’re HUNGRY. You can just tell by the questions that they were asking and the conversations that we were having going back and forth. They just have this thirst for knowledge, a thirst to just succeed! And you know, some were better than others, but you just got to watch the videos and really see which ones hit home with you, and for me, a few of them were mine.

I’ve only had the chance to meet them during that weekend in Las Vegas. So honestly from afar right now, what I can do since I’m filming is pretty much encourage people to check out the films and vote for their favorite. I’ve actually exchanged numbers with a couple of the contestants, so we’ve had an extremely long, open dialogue between us. I think the entire experience right now through Sprite is what I’m helping them with. Like being extremely – not hands-on, hands-on – I think the wording of that is kind of word. As an ambassador, that’s kind of like a title and at the same time, I was there to give advice while I was there and now moving on from that, hopefully they take what they’ve learned from the experience and apply that to their career moving forward and try to be as successful as they can.

Did you have a personal favorite?
Yeah, but I can’t put that out right now! I’m actually a judge too, so I can’t play favorites right now. But I do have a favorite for sure!

What was some of the personal advice that you have given? As you said, some were better than others, and based on your experience as an actor, I’m sure you had some gems to drop on these burgeoning film makers.
I think it was the relationships with most of the directors – they wanted to know about how they could build a good relationship with their actor. I think the relationship that you have with a director is very important – the communication, how you collaborate on certain projects. Because everybody has a job to do, and an actor wants to feel involved in the process and the director sometimes can oversee that and overlook that need in an actor. You know, we want to feel involved. So I think that dialogue back and forth, I basically just told them, “You have to communicate as much as possible. You can’t be so precious with your baby. You have to open up and allow the actor to have some input on what’s going on so he feels more invested and feels like he’s a part of the process.” And I think that was one of the main things I told them – to kind of be a little bit more open towards the talent and talk to them and just kind of include them in the conversation, and they picked that up real quick.

You’ve also been given advice, I’m sure. I know you’ve gotten the chance to sit down with Oprah, who must have had some amazing things to say…
Oprah is a sweet woman. I got a chance to have a one-on-one interview with her, which was incredible! She pretty much just told me – the thing with Oprah, she gets you to ask yourself the right questions. You know? She’s extremely good at what she does and making you feel very comfortable and opening up and talking, but then it’s also like, she has you ask yourself questions. But I guess one of the key pieces of advice that she gave me was pretty much telling me not to change. She said, “Regardless of what happens in the future, just stick to the basics and continue to do what got you here. Just don’t change. Be the person that you are,” and I kind of hold on to that and cherish that because I think that’s a sound piece of advice moving forward – not to change.

I heard Forrest Whitaker gave you some advice on your role as Oscar Grant as well. That had to be amazing…
The thing with Oscar Grant, there was no audio or video, so it was kind of really hard to prepare when you’re playing a real person. Like, my take or my approach on studying to be Oscar Grant was not necessarily off but I didn’t know where to start. So Forrest pretty much told me, “You can’t imitate anybody, you have to be a representation of what Oscar was. You have to capture his essence.” That kind of changed my approach – you know, learning as much as I could about him by getting to know him through his fans and the people that knew him the best, and then giving my take. That’s the best thing I could have done, and I just applied that to the process and came up with my version of who I thought Oscar was.

Before we go, since we love sports at IFWT and the NFL draft just went on – we’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
Honestly, I didn’t really watch it! I was watching San Antonio vs. The Heat! I think it’s the most exciting first round playoffs that we’ve had so far – I think in the NBA, period. I’m a Knicks fan so yeah, not in the playoffs this year. It hurts a little bit.

Photos Credit: Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for Sprite Films
Interview: Iris Elston