Watch: Michael B. Jordan explains why he took the 'badass' starring role of gen:LOCK

The mecha anime gen:LOCK from Rooster Teeth has a stacked cast piloting its weaponized suits. While Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams, Doctor Who’s David Tennant, Aggretsuko’s G.K. Bowes, and War of the Worlds’ Dakota Fanning all have voice roles, Creed and Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan is perhaps the most exciting name in the credits.

As his character, pilot Julian Chase, navigates the world fifty years in the future, where Pacific Rim-esque technology allows mind links to mechs, Jordan himself has been navigating the world of voice acting and the SVOD business model of Rooster Teeth. Jordan explains what drew him to Chase and to the project in a new video.

Check it out:

“He is willing to lay his life on the line for the greater good. He had a lot of heroic qualities to him that made it easy for me to be like ‘cool, I want to voice this guy’,” Jordan said. He explained that he’d been angling for voice work around the time that the script hit his desk, which was the perfect timing for the in-demand actor to get involved with the less-demanding schedule of voice acting. The anime fan also admits that Chase is “pretty badass,” which was an added bonus to voicing the son of Shari Belafonte’s character.

“I come from independent film, so I come from smaller production companies and houses that do a lot with a little,” Jordan said, noting that his involvement with Rooster Teeth was a sort of natural progression since the relatively small company has already established a reputation for well-produced animation like RWBY after years of video game-based content.

The first two episodes of gen:LOCK will premiere on Jan. 26, with weekly episodes airing on following Saturdays.