Ahead of the film’s release, SHIFTER editor-in-chief, Kevin Bourne, talks to Creed III star Jonathan Majors about the pressures of joining a storied film franchise and why he decided to take the role.
Kevin Bourne: Well, first congratulations Jonathan on the role. What emotions, if any, did you feel about being involved in such a storied franchise? Was there any trepidation or just excitement?
Jonathan Majors: Growing up the way I grew up, there are very few things that make me nervous. You know, the emotions that really hit were…Whenever you fight, there’s nerves. You know, when you fight for real, you know, especially for something, there’s a certain level of, you know, tightness, anxiety and all those things. Those things were experienced briefly. But ultimately, the biggest thing was, you know, humility, man. And just like so much love. I just felt so honoured, you know, to be able to contribute to the Rocky-Creedverse. As we began to work and work on a script, and every time a script would come in, there’d be more Damian. He’d call me like, “Hey, listen to this.” The fact that he was willing to share that weight…it had a beautiful effect. The amount of humility and honour allows me to be so dogged and aggressive and going after it.
The excitement lended itself to very hard training, really pushing in the scene work. Being like, “Hey, what are we talking about right here?” You know what I mean? He’s got to deal with me not just as a scene partner, but as, you know, in all intents and purposes, his leading man in the picture. So I’m pushing like, “No, what about this, bro?” Like, “What we think about this” and we’re having meetings.
Those were the emotions, you know–excitement, nerves, humility, curiosity.
KB: I want to know if there were any specific factors in the onset of the project that you saw, whether it’s the script, or working with Michael, that drew you to the role and made you want to be a part of the project.
JM: Yeah. So me and Mike met via FaceTime off top. He ask for my phone number. My team gave it to him. There was speculation about what the project was, you know. Maybe those on “Insta Google Tweeter” thing would have known that he was going to direct this film. I had no idea so I had to talk to my team and be like, “So what do we think it is?” And it turned out to be this.
I guess the most drawing factor was Mike, you know? I mean, Mike is three years older than me, but started in the game when he was 11. Nine maybe? I don’t know. So he’s been at it for a very long time, you know, and is one of the last movie stars that we have. Everybody else is streaming star, whatever the fuck you wanna call it. I’m just an actor, but he is a proper movie star and should be respected as such.
CREED III
A Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film
Photo credit: Eli Ade
© 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved
CREED is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Also, I’ll just go straight to it. He’s a brother. Something that doesn’t happen much is to see people collaborate equally, to share, to grow together. There are very few examples of that. Certain demographics do it quite often. Within the Black community, I’ll just say it, we don’t do that much. We touched on it with Judas and the Black Messiah. Different ballgame though. These guys are complementing each other. Our film is a complete collaboration and competition. A lot of those things aren’t together in Judas and the Black Messiah, beautiful film. Love the picture. Thank God for that. Because now we also have Creed to add to that canon of deep collaboration of proper artists, quote unquote, “proper stars”, working together and building something to gift to the community, give to the zeitgeist and give to the culture, you know. And so I saw that opportunity. Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte are two of my life legends and also two of my idols. And so I thought, wow, I mean, humbly, if Mike is a Sidney Poitier or a Harry Belafonte, if I could bounce off of him and add that much energy to it on this scale, this is big. Folks will see this. You know, we’ll have conversations about this. That was the biggest draw, and I saw early on.
I had to stand up for myself and hold my ground and say, “Listen, bro, two hander”, you know. As a businessman, you know, as an artist, I couldn’t afford it. Especially where I was at the time, he was like, “Oh, no, that’s the plan, bro”. I thought, “Okay, cool”. And he just fortified that with every text message, every chat, every script revision, you know? So the rest of it was the cherry on top. It was essentially that collaboration to show that to participate in that, to be a part of that larger legacy in cinema.
KB: So last question. Watching Michael go through his directorial debut, do you feel like you’re going to get that itch at all at some point to sit in the director’s chair yourself?
JM: No, I still got more to say on this side of the screen. You know, I’m so proud of him. I’m just saying no, not never, you know what I mean? I think I’ve been hit by the producer bug a bit more. I’m producing some things, but even then still producing things that I’m going to participate in front of the camera. And and I write, you know, I’m a poet. So I have that thing going on as well.
I saw what Mike did. I’m so proud of him, so excited for him. I do know that when when I get that itch, I know who to go to have some real in-depth conversations. You know, Spike Lee, Ryan Coogler, Michael Jordan. Those are the guys I would go to and say, “Hey, break this down for me.” Mike has a different perspective on it that would be very beneficial for me when I decide to step into it. But as of now, I still am busy and focused on contributing in this way. But never say never.
KB: Thank you very much.
JM: Of course. Of course.
Creed III opens in theatres everywhere on February 27th.
Related content: