YOU SHOULD BE DANCING
DOING A DEEP DIVE ON DISCO WITH MARVE L’ S LATEST MORTAL TURNED SUPER HERO, FINN JONES.
You have to let yourself get into the flow of it. Don’t think about it too much.” Finn Jones, over the phone from New York, is making a strong case for the music of the ’70s (to this admitted disco skeptic), specifically “Runaway Love”* by Linda Clifford. “It’s one of those 10-minute songs that’s beautiful disco: really groovy, really soulful,” he says, after taking a minute to scroll through his phone to find the exact name.
The English actor, it turns out, is a bit of a not-so-secret audiophile—the kind who can reel off the names of early-disco pioneers (Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, David Mancuso) as smoothly as one might hustle across the floor of Studio 54. “Basically, ‘love and unity’ is the message that courses through early disco, and that’s something I care about,” says the 29-year-old by way of explanation (or justification?). “Being connected with everyone, having a good time... the healing force of music is a real thing.”
As we chat, Jones is strolling through McCarren Park—just north of Williamsburg in Brooklyn—and it seems that even his growing fondness for his new home is linked to his love of a good tune. “I like being in nature, so I wasn’t sure I was going to dig being in a city again,” says the native Londoner. “But living in Brooklyn... there’s so much music history here. That’s fun.”
When I confess that, along with loathing Donna Summer et al., I’m a bit of a superhero doubter, Jones is actually in agreement—surprising for someone who starred in the latest comic book turned Netflix show, Iron Fist, streaming now, a role he’ll reprise in this summer’s The Defenders. “It’s not a genre I’m drawn to,” he says. “In the U.K., I didn’t grow up with it. But Netflix and Marvel Television are making superhero shows for people who say they don’t like superheroes.”
Jones, whom you might also recognize as Ser Loras Tyrell on Game of Thrones, is drawn to the show’s complexity. “This is not about putting on a costume and running around beating people up,” he says of playing Danny Rand, a billionaire whose superpower isn’t just that he’s rich; he’s also in possession of the “Iron Fist,” which makes him the only thing standing between the world and total domination by a shadowy organization called The Hand.
While that’s very good versus evil, Jones himself is more interested in grey areas. “I’m able to see lightness in the most horrible person, and I’m also able to see darkness in people,” he says. “I don’t pass judgment, but I can see clearly—or at least I hope I can.” *Finn: I really tried with “Runaway Love,” but I’m still unconvinced. Sorry!