I stayed up until 6am for this one.
I know that sounds dramatic, but some nights you just know something is about to happen. The 98th Academy Awards were one of those nights — and I had a large cup of filter coffee, a slightly guilty samosa from the previous evening, and absolutely no intention of sleeping until it was done.
The Best Actor race going into Sunday was one of the tightest I can remember. Timothée Chalamet had won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award for Marty Supreme. The general consensus if you were reading the Oscar blogs, which I very much was – was that it was his to lose. Then the Actor Awards happened, and Michael B. Jordan won Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor, and suddenly the whole thing was live again.
When Adrien Brody read Jordan’s name from the envelope, there was a genuine moment of stunned silence before the room erupted. Jordan looked — and this is not an exaggeration — completely shocked. He hugged his mother, who was sitting right next to him, and walked to the stage slowly, like a man trying to make the moment last.
[Ryan], you’re an amazing, amazing person. I’m so honored to call you a collaborator and a friend. You gave me the opportunity in space for me to be seen. And I love you, too, bro. Love you to death. – Michael B Jordan
He began his speech by naming the six Black men who had won Best Actor before him — Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Will Smith — making himself the sixth. The weight of that list sat visibly on him. He thanked Ryan Coogler directly, saying he was honoured to call him a “collaborator and a friend,” and that Coogler had given him “an opportunity and space for me to be seen.”
What I keep thinking about is how completely different the two performances Smoke and Stack are, despite being played by the same person. Smoke’s grief lives in his hands — the shake, the inability to roll his own cigarette. Stack’s lives in his eyes, always slightly ahead of the present moment, already planning the next move. Jordan never announces either performance. He just inhabitsthem, and you feel the absence of each twin when the other is on screen alone.
Jordan told Jimmy Fallon in an interview that whenever Coogler pitches him a project, his answer is always “pretty much” a yes – “It’s like a yes, and then alright, let me read it.” That trust, built over five films from a Starbucks conversation in 2012, finally has an Oscar to show for it.
Future Michael B Jordan x Ryan Coogler Project
He also teased something else that night. Asked backstage about future collaborations, Jordan confirmed there is a sixth Coogler project in the works — “that one’s still in the tuck,” he said. The room laughed, but I immediately opened a new browser tab.
For now though: Michael B. Jordan. Best Actor. First Oscar nomination, first Oscar win. The most well-earned upset in years.
I closed my laptop at 6:15am, satisfied in the way that only a truly great awards night can produce. The samosa was cold. Worth it.
