Michael B. Jordan Snuck Into 'Black Panther' Opening Night Screenings To Watch With Fans

Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan tells ET he snuck into opening night screenings because he wanted to watch the movie with its biggest fans.

"Honestly, everybody was laughing, they were yelling at the screen, you know what I'm saying?" Jordan said. "The gasps, the one-liners, everything was working so it was cool to see it with a normal audience — not at a premiere, not at a press junket. They were really engaged and interacting with the film, so it was good to see."

Jordan, who plays villain and challenger for the Wakanda throne Erik 'Killmonger' Stevens, told ET the response to his role has come as a relief.

"It is a little relaxing to know people are really liking the performance," he said, adding that playing the bad guy "was something I'd never really done before so I was anxious to see how it would play and if it worked... it felt good."

The 31-year-old actor previously portrayed Johnny Storm, a.k.a. the Human Torch, in Fox's 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, which was burned by audiences and critics alike.

Marvel Studios' Black Panther has already earned double Fant4stic's total box office, bringing Jordan the redemption he sought when he called the movie "another shot" to "get it right."

"I'm a geek, I love this world," he said. "I love being able to play in that fantastic kind of space, I looked at it kind of like it's another shot and to get it right, to do it again."

The actor admitted the complex role took him to a dark place, saying his time as the notorious professional killer stuck with him afterwards.

Jordan said he drew inspiration from Heath Ledger's performance as the maniacal Joker in The Dark Knight, saying Ledger's role set the bar for comic book movie villains and he wanted to find that same "controlled rage."

"The villains that are the most fun to watch for me are the ones that you can empathize with, you kind of know where they're coming from, you can see their point of view," Jordan said. "I tried to bring that groundedness to Killmonger."

Black Panther is now playing.

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Marvel's Black Panther may be breaking box office records now that it's finally in theaters, but even for the film's popularity and the praise it's receiving for not just cultural representation but for its strong female characters, there have been some complaints that Black Panther missed a huge opportunity for LGBTQ inclusion.

While Black Panther may not have given Okoye (Danai Gurira) a LGBTQ relationship as has been represented in comics, the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe may have set up for one in a sequel.

Warning: spoilers for Marvel's Black Panther below!

In Roxane Gay's run of World of Wakanda, Dora Milaje warriors Ayo (played by Florence Kasumba in Black Panther) and Aneka are shown to be in a lesbian relationship. In the movie, Aneka doesn't appear, but Okoye has a similar demeanor to the character. However, it's established that she's in a relationship with W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya), the head of security for Wakanda's Border Tribe and T'Challa's (Chadwich Boseman) best friend. When W'Kabi sides with Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) in opposition to both T'Challa and Okoye when she chooses Wakanda over the Killmonger's claim to the throne, that relationship comes to an end.

This change in relationship status for Okoye definitely opens the door for the Dora Milaje warrior to enter a relationship with Ayo in a possible Black Panther 2. It's something that a rumored deleted scene may already be hinting at. A report by Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson claims that in an early cut of Black Panther, a scene existed where Okoye and Ayo share a flirtatious momentwith the women grinning and telling each other they each look good. While that alone isn't enough to establish a relationship or even a hint of one, if it were to make it to an extended version of the film it would at least provide baseline for the two characters the movie could develop into an open LGBTQ relationship, one that might be more groundbreaking as audiences would see it unfold naturally up on the big screen.

Black Panther opens in theaters on February 16th. It's followed by Avengers: Infinity War on May 4th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengersmovie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.