Jonathan Majors

CAME HERE TO CONQUER…

As an actor, Jonathan Majors doesn’t take his choices lightly. “In the ’hood we say you check the paperwork,” he told Variety of his determination to look deeply into what he signs up to. “Make sure the paperwork’s straight, and I expect you to check my paperwork, too.”

Happily, the MCU’s paperwork appears to hold firm. Majors is sizing up a major role in Ant-Man 3, rumoured to be multi-faceted, trans-temporal trouble-causer Kang The Conqueror. And if Majors’ total immersion in his diverse roles is any indication, the MCU just hit gold.

A Yale School Of Drama graduate, Majors has conquered all-comers lately. He aced Korean War veteran Atticus Freeman in TV’s Lovecraft Country, mixing fantasy and history with complicated family dynamics in a fashion that may help ready him for Marvel manoeuvres: fan chatter suggests Kang (aka Nathaniel Richards)

could pave the way for the MCU entry of Marvel’s first fam, the Fantastic Four.

Meanwhile, Majors’ route here has been paved with a string of considered, committed showings in well-chosen, wide-ranging projects. He made a strong impression in the western Hostiles, holding his own with Christian Bale. He was magnetic in a fur coat as the dealer in White Boy Rick (starring alongside Matthew McConaughey), before he nailed some pre-MCU cosmic talk as an academic obsessed with parallel universes in Carol Morley’s Out Of Blue. But his breakthrough came with a watchful performance as a writer in The Last Black Man In San Francisco.

Recognising his value, Spike Lee then cast him in Da 5 Bloods, where Majors brought great nuance to his choppy relationship with his on-screen dad, played by Delroy Lindo.

After an incoming return to westerns with Idris Elba-starrer The Harder They Fall, Kang (here’s hoping…) should open Majors up to new dimensions and possibilities. Famously, the future scholar shifted time zones and identities in the comics. “A tree never tries to be anything other than a tree,” Majors told McConaughey in an Interview Magazine convo about his take on acting. “I’m just trying to be me, but I’ve got to bend and shape.” Plenty of opportunities for that beckon. KH

ETA | TBC / ANT-MAN 3 IS DUE IN 2022. THE HARDER THEY FALL IS SCHEDULED FOR NETFLIX NEXT YEAR.