If you are a soap opera fan, Michael B. Jordan didn’t come just come to prominence in recent years, and before that, he wasn’t just known for The Wire.
After his stint on The Wire, for nearly 3 years, Jordan had a prime, series regular role on All My Children. At the time AMC went off the air, it was the longest-running American soap opera. It was known for being one of the first socially-conscious soaps and was the home of daytime television’s first black supercouple pairing, Jesse and Angie (Darnell Williams and Debbi Morgan).
The soap opera produced the most iconic and memorable soap opera character of all-time, Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane (though fans of Victor and Nikki Newman from The Young and the Restless would debate this).
From 2003-2006, Jordan starred as Reggie Porter Montgomery, a young gang member who was adopted by Jackson Montgomery, Kane’s husband.
So, many people know that these years are a big part of Jordan’s career, making up most of this days prior to Friday Night Lines. But what many people do not know is that Chadwick Boseman also portrayed Reggie Porter as well — which was his first professional acting credit!
Although only for a few episodes, from Jan. 2 to and Jan. 14, 2003, Boseman originated the role of Reggie before the role was recast with Jordan for unknown reasons. Days later, viewers saw Jordan in the role instead of Boseman.
There seems to be no record of Boseman talking about — or even acknowledging his time on All My Children. Jordan occasionally speaks on the show whenever it comes up in interviews, appreciating his time there but noting that he doesn’t want to play a character like that again.
He told GQ in 2015, “You work on a show like All My Children — we all know what it is but you’re still able to grow outside of it It’s the perfect situation. I learned, I grew as an actor, I worked with professionals, I got paid. (But) No dad, no mom, a fu*king stereotypical black role in a soap opera. I saw the stereotype, so moving forward I was like, ‘Nah, those are the roles I don’t want to play.'”
As you can expect, there are very few clips of Boseman as Reggie online. I was only able to find two short clips of Boseman in All My Children, which are in a compilation video of all of his acting appearances over the years.
And also as expected, there are many clips, and full episodes for that matter, of Jordan as Reggie through the years.
You can view some of those videos below:
