Why Isn’t Michael Jordan in ‘Air’? Why Ben Affleck Didn’t Include The Basketball Legend in the Nike Movie

Air is finally streaming on Amazon Prime Video, which means Prime subscribers can now watch the critically acclaimed biopic starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Directed by Affleck, with a screenplay by Alex Convery, Air tells the true story of how the shoe corporation Nike managed to woo up-and-coming NBA rookie Michael Jordan into a partnership, creating one of the most successful shoe lines of all time: the Air Jordans. Affleck stars as the billionaire and former Nike CEO Phil Knight, while Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike marketing executive in charge of expanding Nike’s presence in basketball.

Other cast members include Viola Davis as Jordan’s mother, Julius Tennon as Jordan’s father, Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk, and Marlon Wayans as former basketball coach and Nike marketing director George Raveling. But there’s one key character missing in the cast list: the GOAT himself, Space Jam star Michael Jordan.

In fact, you will see very, very little of Michael Jordan in Air. In the few scenes where Jordan is present, you’ll see only the back of a head. Why? Read on to find out.

Why isn’t Michael Jordan in the Air movie on Amazon?

The decision not to show Jordan’s face in Air was a deliberate one, said director Ben Affleck in talk before the film’s world premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “When you are [Michael Jordan], when you become so much more than a hero or an athlete or even an icon, you start to become an idea to people,” Affleck explained to his audience. “You touch them and just start to represent hope and excellence and greatness. You are one of a kind. And there is no way I was ever going to ask an audience to believe that anybody other than Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan. Which was also out of my own naked self interest, frankly, because I knew it would destroy the movie. You will see him [in archival clips] in the movie, but you will see Michael Jordan as he truly is in his authentic masterful genius which exists for all of us to see. It was a deliberate choice.”

Affleck joked that the only person who could possibly play Jordan was Jordan himself. “I thought he was too majestic to have anyone impersonate him and – as I told him – ‘You’re too old to play the part.'”

Who plays Michael Jorden in the Air movie on Amazon?

In the few shots in which you see a young Michael Jordan from behind, the basketball legend is played by Damian Delano Young. Thought you never see his face, Young has two tiny lines in the movie: He says “Bulls colors,” when he sees the mock-up of his shoe for the first time; and he says “Hello,” when he answers the phone. Other than that, audiences only see the back of Young’s head, or, in one particularly creative shot, the outline of his profile while someone else moves in front of the camera to block his face. That’s gotta be disappointing for Young, an up-and-coming actor whose only other IMDB credits include the amateur documentary short Prom Night Flex, available on YouTube, and a VOD movie called Strictly For The Streets Vol 2.

While I understand what Affleck was saying about the whole “one of a kind cultural icon” thing, I personally find it more distracting that we never see Jordan’s face. Just show us the face! It’s fine that it’s an actor, and not actually Michael Jordan! That’s how movies work!

That said, you do, eventually, get to see the real Jordan’s face in Air. During the end credits, Air plays footage from Jordan’s acceptance speech at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2009. Man, that guy really is a star. Just… not in this movie.