Creed III is the third film to star Michael B. Jordan and the ninth film in the larger Rocky franchise but the movie was a real first in one important way, as it marked Jordan’s directorial debut. Nobody really knew what sort of a director’s eye the actor would have, but co-star Tessa Thompson says one area Jordan was surprisingly involved in was her clothing.
Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Tessa Thompson revealed that her director Michael B. Jordan had some fairly strong opinions about numerous elements of the film, as you might expect. However, he apparently put his foot down in a surprising way when it came to an outfit the actress wanted to wear in a particular scene. Thompson explained…
He’s very specific about clothing, which I didn’t know. We never disagreed about anything except sometimes what shoes I would wear. He just has ideas about ladies’ fashion. There was a party scene where I really wanted to wear something specific. I wanted to wear all black because I’m like secretly goth, I never got to be in high school so now I am. And he was like, ‘no, no, no, you’re not going to wear that.’
It certainly sounds a bit wild that Michael B. Jordan would be making calls on what Tessa Thompson wears, but at the end of the day he was the director and he gets to make the final call on all sorts of things, big and small. And Jordan didn’t just focus on details. He took some pretty big swings with Creed III as the film was very different from the other films in the Rocky franchise in some significant ways. Classic elements like the fight scene at the end are shot differently than we've ever seen before.
While it’s unclear just how “goth” this outfit was, Thompson’s character certainly hasn’t had that vibe going previously, so it might have taken audiences out of the story a bit if she’d showed up that way in one scene. For what it’s worth Thompson said she ultimately agreed with Jordan, and that he made the right call in not letting her wear the wardrobe. Check out her full comments in the clip below.
The totality of Michael B. Jordan’s directorial decisions, from the wardrobe on up, certainly seem to have been the right ones. Creed III had a strong box office opening and solid reviews. Jordan is going to be getting most of the credit for all that as both star and director. If Jordan enjoyed directing and wants to keep doing it, he will all but certainly have that chance after success like this.
