‘An Oscar changes where the comma goes in your cheque’: Jeremy Pope on playing a gay marine
No one – other than Kaa the snake from The Jungle Book – has eyes like Jeremy Pope. Watch the 30-year-old actor in The Inspection, in which he plays a young gay marine, or in the glittery TV series Hollywood or Pose, both cocreated by Ryan Murphy (who recently called Pope “the future”), and it’s hard to deny the hypnotic power of his peepers.
They stay hidden for most of our video call today: he keeps his phone flat on the desk in front of him, with the camera pointing upwards, providing an intimate view of his nostrils. At least his mellifluous voice is music to the ears, even if he does have a habit of referring to himself in the third person.
Pope is calling from New York, where he is at the end of the Broadway run of The Collaboration, in which he stars as the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, opposite Paul Bettany as Andy Warhol. The play premiered in London last year and the actors have reprised their roles for a forthcoming movie version. “Playing Basquiat, it’s about the cost of being a Black individual taking up space in a white industry,” he says. “Which is sometimes what Jeremy Pope feels.” Theatre means “showing up for your character and leaving behind whatever you’ve got going on in the Jeremy Pope world.” He calls it “boot camp for actors”.
He attended an actual boot camp for The Inspection, in which he plays Ellis French, who joins the marines during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era to win the respect of his scornful, homophobic mother. The film is based on the experiences of its director, Elegance Bratton, but Pope also drew on his own life. “It was healing. I was able to put into this character things I had dealt with personally. I could say things and affirm Jeremy Pope through Ellis.”
Such as? “He gets to a place of selfrespect where he only moves toward what serves him, and that’s something I’ve had to navigate as a Black queer artist. There are certain rooms and energies that don’t serve you, and it’s not your job to contort yourself to try to be a version of you that isn’t authentic.”
Could he be referring to the unnamed studio film from which he walked away because the director doubted his ability to play a straight person? “Yeah. He alluded to what he saw as my inability to connect with a female co-star because I don’t sleep with women. As an actor, you don’t wanna feel like after every take you’ve got to go: ‘Didya believe it?’ I never want to be difficult, but you have to ask: ‘Is this pouring anything into my cup?’ So I walked away from a studio film. There will be others.”
Not long after, he got the call about The Inspection. “It was an affirmation that I’m doing what I am meant to be doing. I think how much of a gamechanger this film could have been for me growing up and wanting to be an artist, but not seeing that represented in the mainstream. You wonder: ‘Is that even possible? Is that something I can put up on my mood board?’”
His coiled, aching performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination, although no recognition from the Oscars. Can we agree that the Academy screwed up? He laughs, batting the question away diplomatically. “I honestly thought I was gonna feel something, like: ‘Oh man!’ And I didn’t. We were the little indie film that could. We shot it in 19 days on a limited budget. The fact that we were even part of the conversation – that’s the win.”
Pope doesn’t deny that an Oscar would have given him extra leverage. “As a Black artist, it does change where the comma goes in your cheque. I’ll always be blunt about that, because we’re looking for health insurance, we’re looking for longevity. But as a Black man in an institution that wasn’t necessarily built for Black people to thrive, I’m not surprised.” He concedes controversy has its uses. “It opens up a conversation for people to rightfully be hurt and upset.” Soon, though, he is cheerleading again. “We made a Full Metal Jacket with a Black gay lead. Holy shit, that is transformative! It’s a seed planted for something bigger than us.”
Besides, it’s not as if he has been overlooked in general. In 2019, Pope became only the sixth person in the history of the Tony awards to be nominated twice in the same year for two performances: first as the gay chorister in Choir Boy (written by Moonlight’s cowriter Tarell Alvin McCraney), which was a role Pope first played off-Broadway in 2013; and second as part of the Temptations musical Ain’t Too Proud. “I’m always intrigued by stories that challenge the idea of masculinity,” he says. “As a Black man, I’ve had to ask myself what masculinity is. And in the Black community, it’s so fragile. I love going headlong into that and starting a necessary dialogue about what we deem to be strong and powerful.”
It’s a subject that reaches back to his upbringing. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, he divided his childhood between estranged parents: a mother who wanted to know “why I had so many friends who were girls” and a father who bought him Barbies and didn’t scold him for loving Britney Spears and the Spice Girls. “When I got the lead in Cats, it was my dad who made my costume,” he says.
Perhaps someone will write a script one day about his father, who was a pastor and a professional bodybuilder. Pope accompanied him to bodybuilding contests on Saturday nights, then attended his sermons on Sundays. Being around all those muscular men in skimpy underwear must have been intoxicating for a child starting to discover his queerness. “It was pretty intense, yeah,” he says, smiling. “The takeaway for me was the discipline it took combined with the vulnerability. Presenting their bodies on stage to be judged – it’s such a complex idea.”
Pope speaks admiringly of his father – “I’m grateful to have been raised by a strong Black man who has always made space for emotion,” he says – although they did clash when he discovered his son’s internet habits. “I’d been looking at images of men in their underwear. When my dad caught me, I
thought I was gonna vomit. I asked him what Bible verses I could read to change the way I felt. But he said: ‘The reason I’m upset is you lied to me.’ It wasn’t what I was doing; I had lied about what I was searching for. I dunno …” He goes into a momentary slump, then perks up again. “Shoutout to my dad and to Black men having open conversations with their kids!”
Pope says it was confusing to hear this tender father deliver sermons about the sin of homosexuality. “I was still coming into my own and I felt he was speaking those words to me.” Were you expecting to go to hell? “For sure! That’s the only thing I knew. I kept feeling: ‘Is this gonna stop me from my greatness?’”
Coming to New York to study drama changed everything. “I could step away from being the pastor’s kid and begin asking: ‘Who is Jeremy?’” Time for another shoutout. “Let’s shoutout to New York, because this city changed my life and it changed how I showed up for Jeremy Pope!”
These days, it’s positively commonplace to see Pope on a chatshow or at an awards ceremony wearing some highfashion leather ensemble, or a snazzy suit over a bare torso. What does he look like when he is slobbing out? “Like this,” he says, gesturing to his beanie hat. “I’m either on or I’m off. For J-Pope, off is like: ‘Is there deodorant? I don’t know!’ Who knows if I’m wearing pants right now?” I tell him it’s a terrible tease to say such a thing when he knows our time is up. That is when, at last, he gazes into the camera and flashes those eyes. “The world will never know,” he says, grinning. Shoutout to Jeremy Pope.
• The Inspection is in UK cinemas now
When I got the lead in Cats, it was my dad who made my costume