Johnson, Elordi, Michael B. Jordan, Adam Sandler, Jeremy Allen White, Wagner Moura and Mark Hamill, all in the hunt for their first Oscar nomination, bond over what it took to make it in this crazy industry.
The seven men who gathered for THR‘s Oscar season Actors Roundtable — Frankenstein’s Jacob Elordi, The Life of Chuck’s Mark Hamill, The Smashing Machine’s Dwayne Johnson, Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan, The Secret Agent’s Wagner Moura, Jay Kelly’s Adam Sandler and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’s Jeremy Allen White — don’t share very much in common.
Five are American (Hamill, Johnson, Jordan, Sandler and White), one is Australian (Elordi) and one is Brazilian (Moura). Their ages span from 20s (Elordi, 28) to 70s (Hamill, 74). Some shot to fame on TV (Elordi on Euphoria, Jordan on The Wire, Moura on Narcos, Sandler on Saturday Night Live and White on Shameless), another in movies (Hamill via a little film called Star Wars) and still another in, of all things, wrestling (Johnson).
But as they sat down together at The Sun Rose West Hollywood in mid-November amid a wave of mutual admiration — “I’ve always wanted to meet you,” gushed Johnson, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, to Hamill, whom he first “encountered” decades ago as Luke Skywalker — they all shared two things: (1) Each gave a career-best performance in a 2025 film, and (2) None has ever received so much as an Oscar nomination. For at least some of them, the latter will soon change.
Michael, when you were 19 years old, you came out to L.A. to try to break into movies, but there wasn’t any interest from the agencies. How did you get past that?
MICHAEL B. JORDAN At that age, you take rejection personally — I did, anyway, and used it as a healthy chip on my shoulder to motivate myself to continue to work hard and stay locked in. But also, it fortified this belief that, “What’s for me is for me,” you know? I didn’t know exactly where I was going to end up, but I was on the right path.
Dwayne, you were the highest-grossing actor in the world in 2013, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024. You’re the fifth-highest-grossing actor of all time. The 40 films in which you’ve starred have collectively taken in slightly less than $14 billion worldwide, or an average of $349.7 million. And within the past year, you had two movies open at No. 1 at the box office in the same month, something no other actor or actress had achieved in 27 years. But for a number of years, you’ve felt frustrated with your career.
JOHNSON (Sheepishly) Lunch is on me, boys. (Laughs.) I’ve had a lucky career. But I reached a point seven or eight years ago where I had this little voice behind my rib cage. I think we all have it — sometimes it whispers to us, and sometimes it’s really resounding — and that voice for me was asking, “What’s more?” I’m obsessed with the idea of trying. Yes, “What’s yours is yours, what’s not yours is not yours,” but also, I believe in setting an intention and taking a step toward the thing that you want because the universe has this way of meeting you halfway.
JORDAN Correct.
JOHNSON The big movies are fun to do. They’re hard work, and when they hit, it’s great — a lot of people around the world like ’em. But I had this obsession to do something for me. I started asking myself, “Am I living my dream, or mine plus a lot of other people’s and entities’ around me?” I met Mark Kerr in the late ’90s as he was becoming “the Smashing Machine,” and I saw his [2002] documentary [of the same name] and thought it was really moving. Here was this guy who looked invincible, and in many ways was, but at the same time he was broken inside. I let that be my guiding light creatively, and it allowed me to tap into an artistry I was looking for — to challenge myself: “Oh, there’s the cliff? We don’t know what’s on the other side? Let’s fucking jump!”
Jeremy, Bruce Springsteen had never cooperated with a narrative film about his life before he authorized Scott Cooper to make one, and they both wanted you to star. Take us into how you processed that.
WHITE There are some actors who feel like they can do anything, that they can show up and figure it out. I wanted to make sure I was the right guy. The odds seemed stacked against me. I mean, Scott wanted me to do all the singing in it, but I’d never sung before. He wanted me to play the guitar for it, but I’d never played the guitar before. And we had just six months to prepare. I was like, “I don’t know if that can be done.” So I took a couple of days. But then it was that thing of, “Am I going to shy away from this challenge or am I going to jump and see what happens?” It was a leap of faith.
JOHNSON Jeremy, did you feel — because I felt this on The Smashing Machine — added pressure inhabiting the skin of one of the greatest ever?
WHITE For sure. One of the greatest ever, and also, people have their own understanding of Bruce Springsteen, and I felt like, “I don’t want to interrupt that understanding.” It’s so pure and powerful, and he’s adored, and I just didn’t want to mess with it.
JORDAN Did you find it helpful that you had the resource directly at your disposal, to kind of pull from him?
WHITE In the beginning, I spent a lot of time with Bruce — he was very gracious and generous with his time. But then he was on set almost every day, which was something that we did not speak about prior. And I was just like, “Oh, nooo.” (Laughs.)
ELORDI I saw pictures of that and felt for you.
HAMILL I get vicarious flop sweat just thinking about it.
ELORDI Did you ever feel like you could have an argument with him and say, “I don’t think he would do it that way?” (Laughs.)
For three of you, your 2025 films were reunions with filmmakers you’d worked with before. Michael, you’ve starred in every one of Ryan Coogler’s features going back to Fruitvale Station and through the Creed and Black Panther films. I assume that reteaming brings an added level of comfort?
JORDAN There’s definitely a shorthand that you develop that is extremely important. But also, Sinners is the first movie I’ve done since directing for the first time [2023’s Creed III], so I had a new set of eyes on set, trying to spot ways that I could be helpful to Ryan. And he’s helpful to me — he knows me very well and knew that this one was outside of my comfort zone but thought it was a challenge that I needed and knew that I was looking for a challenge. The fact that he wanted me to play twins …
JOHNSON That’s a crazy cliff, man. You were so good, brother.
JORDAN Thank you, man. That comfortability between me and Ryan — being able to talk through things and push each other — brought the best out of me.