Michael B. Jordan Bombed ‘Star Wars’ Audition in Front of J.J. Abrams: ‘My Worst One to Date’

Michael B. Jordan let it slip in 2013 that he auditioned for a role in J.J. Abrams’ 2015 trilogy-starter “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” but only now he is revealing just how badly that audition went. In a new interview with Variety to promote his Amazon action movie “Without Remorse,” Jordan remembered his “Star Wars” audition for J.J. Abrams nearly eight years ago. Jordan referred to said audition by calling it “probably my worst audition to date.”

“I think it was I couldn’t wrap my brain around some of the sides because you know when you’re reading for these high-level projects, there’s never really any specificity in the sides,” Jordan said. “Everything’s like super vague; everything is in secret. Reading through, I just couldn’t connect it. I definitely bombed that one for sure.”

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Jordan is far from the only actor to blow his “Star Wars” audition. Tom Holland also auditioned for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (both actors went out for the role of Finn, which eventually went to John Boyega) and failed miserably in the audition room. The Spider-Man actor told Backstage magazine earlier this year that he struggled to use his imagination and ended up laughing at his scene partner, a woman impersonating a droid.

“I was like four or five auditions in, and I think I was auditioning for John Boyega’s role,” Holland said. “I remember doing this scene with this lady, bless her, and she was just a drone. So I was doing all of this, like, ‘We gotta get back to the ship!’ And she was going, ‘Bleep, bloop bloop, bleep bloop.’ I just couldn’t stop laughing. I found it so funny. And I felt really bad, because she was trying really hard to be a convincing android or drone or whatever they’re called. Yeah, I obviously didn’t get the part. That wasn’t my best moment.”

Both Holland and Jordan rebounded. The former is Peter Parker in Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, and the latter is Apollo Creed and also an MCU member as Killmonger in “Black Panther.” If all goes according to plan, Jordan’s “Without Remorse” will be the start of new action franchise for Amazon Prime Video. The film is now streaming.

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