Jonathan Majors’ career is in full swing. He has not only entered a new level with the release of ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’, but he has just released ‘Creed III’. Majors has played Kang the Conqueror, the new villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the cosmic level of Thanos, and its arc will extend to at least ‘The Avengers: The Kang Dynasty‘ from 2025, but he could very nearly not be in the MCU at all.
A wait that almost broke relations
During the presentation tour of the new film, Majors revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that his career at Marvel could have been over before it began after deciding to leave his first big meeting with the studio.
“I hope this doesn’t spit me back, but I did bail out of my general meeting with Marvel. This was a long time ago. I had just come out of drama school and was looking for a life, so I ended up sitting in the office. I have grown in a very particular way and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. So I went in there and they were busy. And I was like ‘They were supposed to have called me, right?’ but the wait did not end and I said: ‘I’m leaving. Brilliant. I’ll just go away’”.
But fate wanted him to have an important role in the MCUbecause Majors left the meeting, but did not make it out of the building.
“I got to the door, but then they said casting director Sarah Finn was coming. We entered the room and chatted. We were having a great conversation, but I think it was three years later that we had the Kang talk. And there’s no fear anymore, especially because of who Kang is. When I said yes, we had the full picture and what’s being presented is cohesive.”
Regarding whether the character was imposing on him, Majors affirms that once he knew who the villain was, everything was very clear to him, really what he was afraid of was the possible interference of the study in his work:
“I watched all the Marvel movies and never thought I would be cast in it. But they didn’t ask me to change my approach to acting, which was my biggest fear. I mean, seeing the poster was probably one of the few moments where I I’m like, oh my god. This can’t be real. I’m pretty cool. I’m pretty slow to emotion, but there I was like, ‘Oh, this is on.'”
A villain at the height of an entire phase
For Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studiosthe role of Majors that made the studio take notice of him was ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’, according to what he told Entertainment Weekly, captivating the entire team in the first screenings of the new character:
“In the early days of ‘Quantumania’ Jonathan started to stand out in a big way. He’s the highest level villain we’ve ever had at any of our friends and family screenings. That’s really saying something in a movie like this. Even from the beginning, without the effects, Jonathan is his own special effect. He was working from the beginning.”
Kang actually made his Marvel debut in the latest episode of ‘Loki’ on Disney+, but now we know he was playing a variant there and not the most canonical version that ‘Quantumania’ shows, for which Majors is receiving rave reviews for her portrayal. According to Feige:
“It’s always one of the fun rolls of the dice we do at Marvel, which is to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to make multiple movies around this character, and we’re going to start before audiences have had a chance to meet him.
“We really bought into these ideas and this casting. It was such a relief when the season 1 finale of ‘Loki’ aired. People really seem to agree with Kang. People are chanting, ‘Kang!’ when Jonathan goes on talk shows, and they haven’t even seen him in the movie yet!”