Jonathan Majors puts a lot of weight on his shoulders.
“I’m just trying to be more mindful, so I’m making choices a lot slower,” he tells us. “I’m looking to see where I can grow—and to identify what we need as a culture and what I feel I can contribute.”
“I think I might be on the brink of what I do, and how I’m viewed, as an artist impacts people’s day to day. That’s a rare position to be in.”
This isn’t bluster—Majors just sees the posters lining the cinema walls. The 33-year-old actor, after years of toil, is approaching a moment where he’s poised to earn both stardom and esteem with a string of films that show off so much of what he’s capable of. On January 20, Majors screened his indie bodybuilder drama Magazine Dreams at Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. A month later, he will make his big screen debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kang the Conqueror, the franchise’s central villain for years to come. Then, March begins with the release of Creed III, in which Majors plays the film’s central antagonist.
“It’s not really just about me,” he continues. “It just so happens that I’m in certain projects that will get into people’s houses, and multiple generations will watch it. That’s when things can either get beneficial to society or contaminate society.”
“When elders and children watch the same thing, there’s a discourse, and what your job as an artist is to give them the material to have a productive discourse.”
On its face, a film like Creed III might not seem like the kind of film that’s labeled as “important”. You know the ones I mean—the films that critics call necessary, that maybe gather a few awards nominations before disappearing into acclaimed obscurity. No Creed III is an entertainment, a classic boxing film that will pack popcorn-laden cinemas across the world. But for Majors and co-star and first-time director Michael B. Jordan, it was something more—the chance to tell a story that is rarely told right to a mass audience.
This really sunk in with Majors as he was lifting weights, getting his body into the astounding physical shape he was in to film both Magazine Dreams and Creed. In the latter, he would play Damian Anderson, a childhood friend of Adonis Creed recently released from prison after 18 years, desperate to achieve the dreams he once had before their window closes. As his set continued, he thought of his stepfather.
“My stepfather, the man I call my dad, raised me after being incarcerated for 15 years, and I have not seen that story told,” says Majors. “With Dame, I had the opportunity to show the heart of that, to show the repercussions of that, and that’s when I started shaking as I lifted this weight—emotionally, physically socially. I thought, I’ve got to do my damnedest to get this right.”
Films have long told the stories of the formerly incarcerated, but outside of Shawshank, rarely are those stories told with the depth of empathy and societal context that they deserve, especially when centering marginalized communities. Majors was to play a man in that situation in the era of writers such as Mariame Kaba are awakening people to the irredeemably cancerous effects of mass imprisonment, something he kept front of mind throughout production.
“Michael and I were hell-bent on telling the truth of it. If all you know is crime, but you’re trying not to do crime, what do you do when nothing is working, when society has shut off access to opportunity? We focused on building an individual who had all the dimensions of the incarcerated and the freed, and all the demands. It was not just the poor-me or the f***-you, it was all of it,” Majors says.
Majors kept lifting the weight, and he kept thinking of his dad.
“I lived with a man who was so complex, and in some ways fractured, by the American penal system. I felt implicated to tell a story—or at least a version of it. I put myself fully into that physical transformation, channeling the emotions of a man put in a position no man should be put in. That body you see in the film—that’s a body built on pain and loss,” says Majors.
Majors has seen a lot of difference in himself, both as an actor and a human being.
“But that’s the thing—I haven’t changed, I’ve grown. I imagine myself as a piano, and every role has different keys to hit. I’ve gone from a baby grand to a grand piano to something enormous, where there’s all these different things I can play now. All of a sudden, I’ve grown into a place where I can go over to one side of the keyboard and play something I never could before.”
Majors continues to refine, but he’s no longer looking to transform himself in any big way. After all, he’s far removed from the troubled kid who got kicked out of the house after his own run ins with authority, finding himself living out of his car, an Oldsmobile called Ariel, and working two jobs to survive.
The version of Majors entering 2023 knows who he is. For one, he’s the father of a daughter who is about to turn 10, part of the reason he’s so focused on the impact of his work. At this point, it’s not about figuring it all out, it’s about execution.
“The world around me is changing. My goal is to double down and stay the same. Everyone’s working on their new year’s resolutions right now, and they’re asking me, what are you going to do? I just thought, well I better not change much, because everything’s going ok! I’m now just being still, and allowing things to present themselves.”
There are some doors he’s still waiting to open.
“In a lot of ways, I just got here. There are certain directors, and certain actors, who have established themselves into the American canon that I hope to work with soon. I haven’t been shunned from those places, but I have yet to be invited,” says Majors.
“That’s the beautiful thing about cinema, right? These artists have built worlds, and you have to earn an invitation into that world. If they don’t envision you in their world, you’ll never get there. They’re gatekeepers, and I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. I’m not hunting to get into those worlds—I’m very happy in the world’s I’m in. But getting an invitation would certainly be interesting, that much I can tell you.”
Creed III is in cinemas on March 2 across the Middle East