Michael B. Jordan is an Oscar winner — and he made history in the process!
Jordan emerged victorious at the 98th Academy Awards Sunday night, taking home the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as the SmokeStack Twins in Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners. While the Oscar win was Jordan’s first, and monumental for the longtime actor, it also was a history-making moment, making Jordan the first actor since Lee Marvin to win an Oscar for portraying multiple characters in the same film.
Marvin won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual role in the comedy-western Cat Ballou, where he played both the drunken gunslinger Kid Shelleen, and his villainous silver-nosed brother, Tim Strawn. His performance remains one of the Academy’s most unique acting wins, as until Sunday night, Marvin was widely recognized as the only actor to win an Oscar for playing multiple characters in a single movie, making the Black Panther alum’s portrayal of twin brothers in Sinners an important part of Oscars history.
In Sinners, Jordan portrays twin brothers, Smoke and Stack. Smoke is the more grounded, strategic of the pair, while Stack is looser, flashier, and more impulsive, creating a dynamic that drives much of the film’s tension. Jordan differentiates the twins through subtle changes in voice, posture, clothing choice, and attitude, allowing each brother to feel like a fully distinct character, even when they share the screen. Pulling off convincing on-screen twins is no easy feat, and has long been considered technically impressive, making the win a significant milestone not only for Jordan, but for film in general.
While Jordan didn’t get a chance to acknowledge that bit of history during his win, he did deliver an emotional speech, thanking Coogler, his family — his father who flew in from Ghana for the event, and his mother who was sitting next to him when he won — and his cast mates.
Michael B. Jordan: I want to thank Warner Bros., I want to thank Mike [de Luca] and Pam [Abdy] for believing in this dream, this vision of Ryan Coogler. And betting on a culture, betting on original ideas and artistry.
Addressing Coogler directly, Jordan called the director “an amazing person.”
Michael B. Jordan: I’m glad to call you a collaborator and a friend. You gave me the space to be seen… I love you too, bro. I love you to death.
And though Jordan didn’t touch on the gravity of the twinning moment during his acceptance speech, backstage in a press room interview after the show, Coogler shared why Jordan was the perfect person to embody both Smoke and Stack.
Ryan Coogler: So, as soon as I imagined what those two characters were gonna be, I knew I had to call Mike. I waited a little bit though. He ended up calling me before I got to him, and asking me if I’d be interested in something he was working on independently. And I told him it wasn’t the right time, and he got a little upset. So then I had to tell him about this movie earlier than I wanted to, but thankfully he said yes. I wanted the script nice and tight for him before, but he jumped the gun a little bit, so I had to jump it back.
Jordan later spoke to reporters in the press room after his win, about creating the specific nuances to separate Smoke and Stack, sharing that he journaled to get to the heart of their very different perspectives.
Michael B. Jordan: I write a lot of journals, for my characters, like backstories. So I try to go from the earliest memories that I can conjure up — so that at least gives me an opportunity to kind of figure out where they’re coming from, and that informs a lot of the decisions. But these particular characters, their childhood trauma, to differentiate the two of them — Smoke is a bit more quiet, he’s protective. Stack is a little bit more enlightening, going in, a little bit of a slick talker and troublemaker.
So I try to just establish different perspectives. They have an outstanding relationship for their entire lives, so just imagine being in a partnership for 30-something years, how many times they would argue, how many times they would keep score on who’s right, and who’s wrong. All these things kind of just started to build up so they can have a history between each other, and those are the things that hopefully came to light in between the lines, those nuances between the two.
While it was Jordan who emerged victorious Sunday, the race for Best Actor was a tight one this year, with Timothée Chalamet expected by many to take home the trophy for his portrayal of Marty Mauser, a fictional character loosely inspired by the real-life 1950s table tennis icon and hustler, Marty Reisman, in Marty Supreme. Other nominees in the category included One Battle After Another star Leonard DiCaprio, Blue Moon star Ethan Hawke, and The Secret Agent star Wagner Moura.
In addition to Best Actor, Sinners took home a few other trophies Sunday night, including Best Original Screenplay for Coogler, Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and Best Original Score for another longtime Coogler collaborator, Ludwig Göransson.
- Location
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Los Angeles, CA
- Dates
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March 15, 2026
- Website
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https://www.oscars.org/