Just Mercy: The deeply personal true story behind Michael B. Jordan’s body transformation

He’s the super-buff star of Black Panther and Creed – but Michael B. Jordan has been sporting a very different look in his latest role.

The first thing Michael B. Jordan had to do was change his workout routine.

The adjustments were for his new movie Just Mercy, where he plays celebrated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, whose organisation Equal Justice Initiative has helped to challenge the death penalty in more than 140 cases, many of them featuring claimants who had been wrongfully convicted.

Lawyers, even truly heroic ones like Stevenson, simply don’t look like Jordan looks when he plays characters such as, say, boxing superstar Adonis Creed in Creed, or the rage-fuelled antagonist Killmonger in Marvel’s Black Panther.

It was something the real-life Stevenson and Jordan discussed when they first met to talk about Jordan potentially taking on the role.

“We talked about the changes in his workout regimen he had to make to actually get up to my level of fitness,” Stevenson jokes to news.com.au, as we speak on the eve of the movie’s release in New York.

It turns out that the lawyer, a humble figure whose work in the field of capital punishment has been applauded by everyone from Oprah to Barack Obama, is also pretty funny.

“Michael and I had a great time,” Stevenson adds with a smile. “He’s not only talented, but he’s a really kind human being. And he cares deeply about these issues. So we spent a lot of time just talking about the issues.”

We are used to seeing Jordan as he appeared in Creed. Picture: Warner Bros

Jordan had to significantly slim down for his latest role in Just Mercy. Picture: Supplied

By which Stevenson means the shocking statistics about what it’s like to be a black man on death row. According to Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative, 166 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, a figure that amounts to around one in nine of those incarcerated and facing the death penalty. Some 87 per cent of black exonerees who faced capital punishment were later found to have been victims of mishandled or misconducted investigations, often featuring false testimony or evidence.

In the US, African-Americans make up 42 per cent of prisoners on death row and 34 per cent of those executed, even though only 13 per cent of the population is black.

Walter McMillian was one of those men. In 1988, the same year that a 28-year-old Stevenson graduated from Harvard Law School and moved to Alabama to establish his legal organisation, McMillian was sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit.

McMillian became one of Stevenson’s first clients and the embodiment of what Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative stood for. McMillian proclaimed his innocence. He had an alibi. The testimony against him was fabricated. And in 1993, with Stevenson as his legal advocate, McMillian’s conviction was vacated and he was released from prison. He had served six years on death row as an innocent man.

This is the focus of Just Mercy, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) and starring Jordan as Stevenson, Jamie Foxx as McMillian and Brie Larson as Eva Ansley, one of Stevenson’s early collaborators at the Equal Justice Initiative.

Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx in a scene from the movie Just Mercy. Picture: Warner Bros

The true story of McMillian’s release from prison is interwoven with the experiences of other real-life death row inmates, including Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan), Anthony Ray Hinton (O’Shea Jackson Jr) and Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson), a prisoner who fabricated testimony against McMillian.

Fans of the legal drama, a genre that boomed in popularity in the ’80s and ’90s in both cinema and literature, will find much to love in Cretton’s steady-handed, assured direction. There’s no moral murkiness in this movie. Just Mercy knows what side it’s on: the side of justice.

The second thing Jordan had to do, after adjusting his fitness routine, was contact Foxx. As a producer on the film, Jordan had some power over putting together the cast. He also had the power to enforce a diversity inclusion rider on set, making it the first film from a major studio to do so.

For five years, as the film bubbled through development, Jordan knew that he wanted Foxx to play the wrongfully accused McMillian. Just Mercy marks the first time that the pair, who have been friends since Foxx first spotted a very young Jordan in The Wire, have acted together onscreen.

“Oh man, to watch him grow not only as an artist but an artistic activist … it’s his way of not only entertaining, but educating,” Foxx enthuses to news.com.au. We’re speaking in New York on the day of Foxx’s 52nd birthday – “Thank you,” he smiles, when we wish him many happy returns – and the pair are sitting side-by-side.

Jordan looks bashfully at his hands as Foxx praises his work, but it only serves to encourage his collaborator. Foxx namechecks Jordan’s previous films, including Fruitvale Station and Black Panther.

“Now, when you see the evolution of it, everyone’s along for the ride,” adds Foxx. “When you see the Toronto Film Festival and (Just Mercy) gets a standing ovation. You hear that Just Mercy tested in front of a black audience at 97 … That’s him putting all of that good work together. The fact that he’s not only in front but behind the camera as well, it is so important that that be recognised,” Foxx said.

He looks over at Jordan and beams. “When the movie was in Toronto and people jumped up and I see his face, and he had a little … He had a little thing,” Foxx says, pretending to wipe tears away from his eyes. “That’s a testament to his perseverance at such a young age.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Jordan adds. “I got emotional.”

Jamie Foxx and Michael B Jordan were friends for a long time before they worked together. Picture: Warner Bros

The third thing Jordan had to do was learn how to move like a lawyer. “That was something that he was very concerned about,” Stevenson admits. “He was a really quick study. We talked about how to approach the bench, how to use physicality when you’re in a courtroom, and he does a brilliant job in those scenes, but also the other scenes where he’s more vulnerable.”

These include moments when Jordan, as Stevenson, is subjected to a humiliating strip search by police officers on death row, or later when Stevenson is forced to watch an execution. That scene, which takes place about halfway through the film, is one of the most harrowing moments in the movie and the most difficult scene for Stevenson himself to watch.

“I write about it and I talk about it, but Michael’s performance is so compelling and did really put me back in that place,” he says.

For Stevenson, it was a reminder of why he first committed to fighting capital punishment three decades ago. “That’s when I realised that we are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” he says. “That’s the moment that made me resolve that I would do everything in my power to protect the basic human rights of every person on this planet.”

Stevenson isn’t the only one affected by the scene: I tell Jordan and Foxx that there wasn’t a dry eye in my screening, something that Jordan says makes him “feel very proud”.

“I think that storytelling through movies is one of the most powerful forms of art,” Jordan adds. “And I think to have people sit in the theatre and collectively feel the same way and feel emotional, and be moved, and hopefully feel inspired to leave the theatre and feel like they want to do something about it, that’s really important …

“We made a movie that is truthful and educates and allows people to start a conversation that hopefully provokes a change.”

Michael B. Jordan stars as a hero lawyer in the film. Picture: Warner Bros

But Just Mercy isn’t only a movie for American audiences, or for countries where capital punishment still exists. As Foxx adds, it’s a movie for everyone. “You don’t have to have capital punishment where you live to understand human atrocities,” the Oscar winner explains. “Meaning that in every part of the world there are humans who have disenfranchised other humans, do you know what I mean? The topic is capital punishment, but the overall story is ‘How do we treat each other?’

“That’s the overall story, and that’s what Bryan Stevenson talks about and what Michael B. so brilliantly brings to life. How are we treating each other? That’s why this story is a universal story.”

Just Mercy is in cinemas on January 23.

Hannah-Rose Yee is a freelance writer | @hannahroserose

The writer travelled to New York City as a guest of Roadshow