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?

TheWrap magazine: The two creative forces explain how their 13-year partnership yielded the critical and box office smash about the blues, the Jim Crow South and vampires

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan remember their first meeting vividly. Coogler was 27, a recent USC graduate looking to cast his first feature film; Jordan was a year younger, an actor best known for roles in the TV series “The Wire,” “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood.” The two met in Forest Whitaker’s production office near Hollywood in 2012, and Jordan suggested they go across the street to a Starbucks to continue the conversation. Jordan, born in Southern California but raised in New Jersey, walked out of the office and straight into Cahuenga Boulevard traffic, shocking the Oakland-born-and-bred Coogler.

“I looked at him and said, Come on, they’re gonna stop!” Jordan said, laughing. “And then, man, we just hit it off.”

Coogler was seeking the lead in his movie “Fruitvale Station,” about a 22-year-old Oakland man who was shot and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer in 2009. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of charging across Cahuenga — “maybe they stop for you in Newark, but in California you’re putting your life in danger” — but at some point in that Starbucks, he decided to bet on this guy. “I said, ‘Hey, man, I think you’re a movie star. Let’s do this project together and show the world.’”

“It was the first time anybody told me that, without a doubt,” Jordan said. “At that point I was going around town and introducing myself and trying to get on people’s minds, but there was never somebody saying, ‘This is what I think you can do.’ I would look at myself in the bathroom mirror and try to build up the belief that I was gonna be successful, but I never knew how directors or writers or filmmakers thought about me. But when Ryan said it in that Starbucks, that was the first.”

It wasn’t the last. “Fruitvale Station” was a remarkably powerful debut, making Jordan every inch a leading man and Coogler a director to watch. Their next collaboration, the Rocky spinoff “Creed” was a critical and commercial hit. Marvel came calling and handed Coogler the reins to “Black Panther.” In return, they got themselves a $1.35 billion smash, with Chadwick Boseman as the title character and Jordan as the relentless antagonist Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, who dies in the first film but returns in spirit form in the sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

Michael B. Jordan has been a working actor for over 24 years. Four years longer than LeBron James’ NBA career, and one year longer than Tom Brady’s stint on the NFL gridiron. He has a youthful appearance and spirit, so it’s easy to overlook his incredible feat of staying power in an industry that can be so transactional. He has toiled away on network television, cable, independent cinema, midbudget studio fare, and Hollywood blockbusters alike, always with a blue collar approach.

With this year’s Creed III, he took on a new role—feature-film director—and handled it with aplomb. I knew he would. Because directing is a working person’s game. The world sees the press tours, the interviews, and the edited behind-the-scenes footage, but I am deeply familiar with the reality. Marathon conversations with actors. Budget meetings when you realize cutting part of the story is the only way forward. Postproduction hours when your own mistakes laugh at you from the footage. It’s like climbing a mountain summit through enemy territory with your heart exposed. But I knew Mike had it in him. Because over that quarter-century of work, nothing was given to him. Everything was earned. And I strongly believe that his best work is still to come.

Coogler is a director and Oscar-nominated producer

Set Design by Kelly Infield; Styling by Jason Bolden; Hair by Jove Edmond; Make-up by Tasha Reiko Brown; Production by Viewfinders