It would be inaccurate to call Jonathan Majors a rising star. Since his breakout role as Mont, a tender San Francisco playwright subverting the stereotypes of Black masculinity, in the Sundance darling, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” he’s been on an enviable pace. An acclaimed role in Spike Lee’s cathartic Vietnam War film “Da 5 Bloods” was followed with a role in the upcoming all-star Netflix western “The Harder They Fall,” where he’ll play real-life cowboy Nat Love. As has his current run as MCU supervillain He Who Remains on the Disney+ series “Loki,” and Kang the Conqueror on the upcoming “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” He’s now fully established.
But it’s the HBO sci-fi horror series, Misha Green’s “Lovecraft Country” that has, so far, best introduced him to a wider audience. Based on Matt Ruff’s same-titled novel, “Lovecraft Country” follows Atticus Freeman (Majors), his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), father Montrose (Michael K. Williams), and close friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) navigating ghosts, Lovecraftian monsters, and Jim Crow in 1950s America. A Korean war vet wrestling with demons stemming from the war, his icy father, and the travails of fighting racism, Tic allows Majors to not only be heroic. But to explore his own, personal tribulations.
Though “Lovecraft Country” proved successful during its first season, racking up six Primetime Emmy nominations, including an Outstanding Lead Actor nod for Majors, HBO recently decided not to renew the series. “It feels like you lost a friend,” he explained in our post-mortem interview.
“It’s like that summer camp friend. But then that summer camp doesn’t exist anymore.”
During the rest of our conversation, Jonathan put his recent rise into context, explained how acting is a profession for healing, detailed his approach to roles like Nat Love and Kang the Conqueror, and his desire to play Henry V.
The Playlist: Since “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” your career has deservedly skyrocketed, especially in the last year while the world has sorta crumbled. Has there been a dissonance between the two?
Jonathan Majors: Well, I can say God is great. It’s been a really odd, very peculiar journey. It’s always been that way. I would say growing up, I believe it today too: If something good is going to happen, it’s going to happen to me. If something bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen to me. For whatever reason, things don’t come halfway my way.
That said, it’s been humbling to work, man. I’ve been at it since I was 14 years old. To see it all kind of happen, it’s cool. I’m also seeing it happen in a strange way.
I was speaking to Jurnee maybe two months ago, and she had sent me a photo, and it was our billboard. And I said: You know, I’ve never seen it live. I think the week I finally saw it was probably the week I found out the show was going to be canceled. Look at God. [laughs]
You know what I mean? Because humility is key.
Not to jump in the deep end, but what are your thoughts on the cancellation of the show? Do you hope that it comes back in some form?
“Lovecraft,” without sounding cliché, will never die. For instance, what you just said, the fortunate nature of how things have gone for me, career-wise — that’s from the seeds of “Lovecraft Country.” Now if it comes back, will you have an Atticus, an Uncle George, and Montrose? I don’t know.
How does that feel? It feels like you lost a friend. Atticus was my best friend for a long time. Not to sound weird about it, but you get to know a guy, build him, you wear his clothes. He’s your brother. For me, I thought I’m coming back to you soon. It’s like that summer camp friend. But then that summer camp doesn’t exist anymore. Now you’ve gotta figure out how to get back with your boy. It’s bittersweet but more bitter.
With regards to playing Atticus: Are there moments in your daily life where that character floods back to you?
Every show and every character is there to teach you something. What Atticus has taught me was to be mindful of one’s legacy, and what it is to protect your heart, protect the ones you love. It resonates for me in my day-to-day life by asking what it means to move Black culture forward, to move our industry, outside of our race, forward. That’s our legacy.
Then finally, the one thing it taught me, and I’m working on this now, with this next role, but Atticus was the first to teach me what it was to be a hero. And what that really costs. The hero is he or she who allows their heart to break. I didn’t know that before. In that case, the hero can be anybody. I really hold on to that. I carry Atticus with me, and he’ll metastasize into other characters.
The guy who plays Hamlet can play Othello. The guy who plays Othello and Hamlet can play Lear. But if you only played Lear, you’re not going to be as good as the guy who played Othello and Hamlet, and then played Lear.
How about your upcoming run as Kang the Conqueror. How are you approaching him?
I would say with fictitious characters, they’re only fictitious to other people. He’s a real guy to me. So I’m approaching it in the same way: what he sees and what he says is based on what’s around him in the world. So same old, same old: Wicked.
With regards to you being from the South, how much of you are you putting into Atticus? Or did you keep an emotional distance?
The character will tell you when you’re separate because the imagination can only do so much. Any part of myself that would fit into Atticus, I fit in. There are also parts of myself I didn’t know existed. That Jim Crow horseshit is part of my upbringing. It gets in the dirt, you know. And it’s in the air now. You can’t shake it. It’s deeper than that.
To have the opportunity to go after that, to ritualize defiance, and then to capture it and memorialize it on a TV show — that offers me, and hopefully those who watch it, a type of healing or catharsis.
The Netflix western “The Harder They Fall” is a place where you get to play a version of a real-life cowboy: how do you balance historical accuracy in your performance while giving yourself space to play with the material?
If I were to ask your best friend: Break it down. Tell me about your boy. He’d be wrong. There’d be something that he didn’t know. That’s what the movies are, right? The movie is showing the part that only the person that’s doing it knows. That’s what’s being captured.
When I look at the DNA of a guy, I think of it, many times, as a documentary. You’re telling a secret in a way. I go: Okay, Nat Love was a cowboy, he grew up in Tennessee, he was also called Deadwood Dick and was a great cattleman. These are all the facts. Then it’s my job to make these facts into a humanoid and then give it voice, speech and emotion. And then to figure out what he or she is expressing. Once you can find out the expression of the character, that makes it real.
You’re not on social media: What’s your reasoning for avoiding it?
If you don’t go to the gunfight, you can’t get shot. You feel me? [laughs]
For me, it’s two-fold: I love people. I love my brother. I’m a bit of a recluse; I like to be by my lonesome. I also like looking at you, right here, and being like, Look at this beard bro. I mean, literally I can’t get that anywhere else.
I don’t know the world enough not to comment on it. I just know that I’m doing alright without it. I’m still blessed enough to be able to make movies without it. It ain’t hurting me, and I ain’t hurting nobody being off of it. I’m just going to continue to mind my business.
For people who haven’t watched “Lovecraft Country,” is there a scene you believe encapsulates the series?
I would say the moment between Atticus and Montrose in the alleyway. Montrose is having this confession. He says that all he wanted to do was be Tic’s father. You see Tic wrestling with the truth of that. He surrenders and engages with his dad and enlists in his dad’s army.
And you know, Jackie Robinson in the premiere, that’s the full circle of protection of legacy and of love. It is the prodigal son that says by saving his father, he heals the hurt that started this whole thing.
You’ve tended to play characters who have fraught relationships with their fathers. What draws you to that?
Spike Lee and Misha Green. [laughs]
You know, being an actor is not that great either. You kind of just sit around and you don’t do shit. But there is a beauty to it, if you can crack the formula of acting. There’s a very healing process for oneself.
Some of the greatest artists say they’re always looking for the thing that scares them. And I kind of relate to that because I look for the characters that have the same issues I have. Otherwise, you know, it can get boring.
It’s funny. I was jokingly saying to my boy: I’ll probably stop acting pretty soon. I can feel it. You want to keep trying to find levels of difficulty. That’s the thing about being an actor with no social media, what you say is out there. The relationship between me and my father, it is what it is. But for me, that’s something I’m still working on.
So when I see roles that are going to challenge me in that way, I’ve got to take it. That’s going to keep me acting. That’s going to keep me in the craft of it. That’s going to help me heal.
There’s something about our struggle as Black men, I’m into that. There’s something about my struggle as an American, I’m into that. My struggle as a Southern man, I’m into that. Acting can help one become a better person if you approach it that way. It’s like therapy.
You mentioned Shakespeare earlier: Which play would you most want to perform on screen?
“Henry V.” And why Henry V? Because in this day and age, an outnumbered, out-soldiered, out-financed group of people being led by the youth towards change, toward an expansion of emotional and social, and therefore cultural territory and zeitgeist, that is the story of Henry V.
The transformation of him: He used to be the homie, Hal. And now he’s Henry. He has a rough background; like I do. He had to make a huge change in his life; like I did. That seems like a role that’s very challenging, wherein I can learn and grow.
Shakespeare in the Park is a dream of mine. I’ll do the film, I’ll do whatever to play that role again. I played it once before, in upstate-New York in some beautiful place called Chautauqua Theater Company. It’s a great play and everybody should read it. And it’s a really moving story [recites]:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me.
Shall be my brother
It’s so good, especially in the height of the shit “Lovecraft” came out in. It’s the perfect protest piece.
“Lovecraft Country” is available now on HBO/HBO Max. “Loki” is available on Disney+. And “The Harder They Fall” is set to hit Netflix on October 6.
