Last week, the cast of Fantastic Four sat down for a not so fantastic radio interview with Atlanta's Rock 100.5. Michael B. Jordan discussed that very conversation in an interview with HuffPost Live Tuesday, saying he's glad that he and his co-stars "took the high road" after Steven J. Rickman (aka Southside Steve) asked them to defend or explain how black and white characters could feasibly be related.
In the July 30 interview, Rickman said, "From what I've seen, you're brother and sister. You're white and you're black. How does that happen?" Jordan, who has often been asked a variation of that question since he was cast in the film, gave a calm response. "They could be raised as brother and sister," he said. "There's a whole bunch of family dynamics that could be without the obvious adoption."
The actor elaborated on the exchange in the HuffPost Live chat.
"Sometimes journalists use that room as a safety net to kind of say whatever they want and ask questions that they would never normally ask you outside of that room," said Jordan, who plays Johnny Storm/Human Torch in the comic book flick. "As actors, sometimes we feel the pressure to always say what you're supposed to and kind of put your best foot forward promoting the film. We don't want to bring any negativity towards the positive message and what we're actually there to do."
Kata Mara, who plays Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, called the race question "just ignorance." Jordan, meanwhile, didn't want to give the Rock 100.5 interview any more press. "We're still people. We're still human. So, that kind of bothers us. At the end of the day, we don't want to bring the attention to ignorance, and we always take the high road on these things and move forward, you know?" Jordan said.
In the comics, the Storm siblings have traditionally been white. Jamie Bell, who plays Ben Grimm/Thing, said too much has attention has been paid to Johnny/Human Torch being played by a black movie star rather than a white one.
"When it comes to making something, especially when you want to do something different, you have to disassociate yourself from those [diehard fans] and make it for yourself, and not be influenced by anything other than your own creative decisions," he told HuffPost Live. "Both camps—us actors and the movie makers and fans—are coming from the same place: We just want to make a good movie."
Fantastic Four is in theaters Friday.