Susan Lucci Congratulates TV Son Michael B. Jordan on Oscar Win With Touching Message

Michael B. Jordan won his first Oscar at the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15, and the performer has certainly received some much-deserved praise for his Best Actor victory for Sinners. There was even an extra special congratulations from his former soap opera mom, Susan Lucci.

For those who may need a refresher, Jordan and Lucci starred together in All My Children, with him playing Reggie Montgomery, a troubled teen who was adopted by Jack Montgomery (Walt Willey), who was married to Lucci’s Erica Kane, therefore making her Reggie’s stepmother. In the since-concluded soap, Jordan appeared on over 50 episodes from 2003 to 2006.

“Congratulations @michaelbjordan on your Oscar! I watched last night and was so excited to see you win!! AND what a beautiful, gracious, and authentic acceptance speech you gave,” Lucci wrote on Instagram, as she added, “So proud to have worked with Michael on AMC!!! What a spectacular actor he is!!!👏👏👏🎉🎉🎉❤️” The caption was accompanied by an image of a scene featuring Lucci and Jordan from their All My Children days, which you can see below:

 

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In a serendipitous turn of events, Jordan’s casting in All My Children actually saw him take over the role of Reggie Montgomery for Chadwick Boseman, who he’d later star alongside in Black Panther, also directed by Sinners’ Oscar-winner (for Best Original Screenplay) Ryan Coogler.

“Chad Boseman had just come out of Juilliard,” casting director Judy Blye Wilson told TV Insider. “I was looking for a very special character that was going to have quite a heavy-duty storyline. The boy was supposed to be 15 or 16 years old, and Chad was really already into his twenties. So, a little stretch was made, but he was really too old.”

“Chad was brilliant, but he didn’t realize that you don’t just walk into the writers’ on daytime — or anything else for that matter — because he hadn’t worked at all; he’d just been in school. So, he went into the writers and started telling them, ‘This is very stereotypical, and I think it would be very much better if you would do it X, Y, and Z.’ And they had been rolling around in their minds anyway that he was looking a little bit older than they wanted, so he was let go, which is shocking and mind-boggling because his performance was so fantastic,” Wilson continued.

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In the end, Jordan took over the role, as Wilson recalled, “Michael was 15, and he lived in New Jersey, and his mommy brought him over every single day. He was better cast in the role in the sense of age, and he turned out to be pretty spectacular. Michael B. Jordan is simply a wonderful human. There’s an old story of them appearing on a talk show together after they both became famous, and Chad said, ‘Hey, you’re the guy that stole my role on All My Children.’ But they were very close friends.”

Jordan’s talent didn’t go unnoticed during his time with the soap, as resurfaced footage from Soap Talk saw Jordan talking about being nominated for an NAACP award surrounding the part, as well as the recasting of Reggie (Check it out here). In addition to All My Children, Jordan’s TV roles have spanned decades as he made his debut on The Sopranos, followed by roles in The Wire, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and Raising Dion, among many others.

— Additional Reporting by Stephanie Sloane