Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, and Tessa Thompson are proud of their total knockout threequel, "Creed III." The highly anticipated third installment [1] of the Creed franchise, which marks Jordan's directorial debut, has already put up big numbers at the box office and viewers are crowning it one of the best movies of the year [2] so far. Much of that has to do with the blood, sweat, and tears the film's leads [3] poured into their performances, both in front of and behind the camera.
"We're not just boxers, we're boxers in a Creed film."
"You give everything," Majors tells POPSUGAR of committing to "Creed III"'s high expectations. "My motto is, 'I didn't come here for a haircut, I came here to shoot this movie.'"
It's no secret that Jordan and Majors both got in the best shape of their lives [4] to take "big swings" in "Creed III." In fact, the latter says he trained two to three times a day for roughly a year to bulk up for the boxing flick. "The gauntlet was thrown down when Mike said he wants two gladiators in the ring," Majors notes. "We're not just boxers, we're boxers in a Creed film. There's a standard, and our objective was to bust that standard."
The two, who star in "Creed III" as childhood friends turned rivals Adonis Creed (Jordan) and Damian Anderson (Majors), put in a lot of work to deliver, arguably, some of the best anime-inspired fight sequences we've ever seen on the big screen — which Jordan says challenged him to "think outside the box" and "get more creative." "Certain things [are] really hard to adapt into live action, so I tried to find the right balance in the right places," the actor-director adds.
Thompson — who plays Adonis's wife, Bianca — had the unique filming experience of being directed by her longtime costar for their third Creed film together, though she says their chemistry and years-long friendship made it that much more exciting. "We've been working together now for almost nine years. We're also friends, we're close, and we know each other in a lot of ways," she says. "It kind of feels like we've grown up together. We've really matured, seen each other through relationships, so I do think you bring that to the work."
See what else the "Creed III" cast had to say about their electrifying film in their POPSUGAR interview above — from the challenges of learning ASL to the boxing influences who played a role in the movie.
