-Jonathan, welcome.
Thank you so much for being here.
This is your late-night talk-show debut.
Just how you always pictured it happening, over Zoom.
-Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's great, man.
I mean, I never thought it would happen, or pictured it.
But, yeah, it's -- I'm glad to be here, man.
Very much so.
-There's so much going on I want to talk to you about,
'cause I know you were in New Mexico
filming a movie that is like a Western
that Jay-Z has produced? -Yeah.
-Called "The Harder They Fall."
And then COVID-19 broke out. Is that what happened?
-Yeah, we were a day from -- a day from shooting.
We had done a pre-shoot day,
and then we saw the suits come in
or the Netflix guys come in,
one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand.
They called us all in.
Which was not the best idea, when I come and think of it.
They called us all in one room to tell us
that there was a pandemic and we were shutting down.
-No, you keep everyone distant. -But it happened.
-Yeah. -Yeah. "Stay where you are.
Stay where you are and listen up."
-Your co-star in "The Harder They Fall" is Idris Elba,
a.k.a. one of The Sexiest Men Alive.
-Correct, yeah. -Yeah.
Did he hold that over everyone's head?
Does he walk around with a "People" magazine,
showing everybody?
-No, the thing about Dris is he is a very, very, very sweet man.
You know, he's just so gentle.
And, like, it's almost like -- When you see him, you go,
"There's no need for you to tell us that,
because we can see you are The Sexiest Man Alive."
-Yeah, yeah, we already know. -You know, he's like
"Oh, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah."
-I thought you were going to hold up --
Because you can show him that you're coming for him
because you're on the cover of October issue of "GQ."
-Yeah, wow, man. -I mean, come on!
-Yeah. -That's awesome.
-Yeah, that's all right. -Congrats, buddy.
-Thank you, bro. Thank you.
-Can you think back 20 years ago when you were a kid?
Did you ever think one day you'd be on the cover of "GQ"?
-You know -- I'll tell you the truth.
I did think so, but I thought
it would be because I was a basketball star.
I thought I was going to be a point guard.
-Really? -Playing in the NBA, yeah.
That was like -- That was, like, the plan.
And then my uncle,
who is probably my closest mentor to this day --
I was about 14 years old.
I was playing ball. And he came to the game, man.
I was like, "Okay, Uncle Chuck's coming to the game.
I got to clown. I got to do my thing."
And I played my ass off, man.
And at the end of the game, he pulled me to the side.
I was in his truck.
And he said, "Nephew, I got something to tell you."
I'm like, "what? Tell me. What was it? What was it?
What'd you like? What'd you like?"
He said, "I don't think this basketball thing
is going to work out.
-Aww. -I don't think it's for you."
-No. -And I go -- Yeah.
I go -- I go, "What?"
We didn't talk for probably -- probably six months.
I didn't talk to my uncle.
And, mind you, I'm 6 feet tall.
My uncle's about 6'5"
and just a brilliant athlete.
-So he knows how to play.
-And so he says it. I go, "Okay, cool."
And then that kind of put me on the track, though.
You know, that's a hard no. You know?
-I would have -- I would have started
to break down crying right there.
I would have been like -- -Oh, that happened.
That absolutely happened. In his Chevrolet.
In his white Chevrolet truck. -Wow.
And then you thought, "Oh, acting is what I want to do."
-I was -- I was kind of already in it.
I was kind of already --
Things had happened in school, you know,
trouble and all that stuff, and kind of put me on that path,
and I was getting into it at that point.
But then -- It was kind of like a turbo boost
when Uncle Chuck was like, "Nah, nephew."
You know. And it was so sober.
That's the thing. It was so sober.
I was like, "Okay." -Wow.
-"All right, then." -Wow, that was --
Yeah. "You really said that." Oh, my gosh.
"You didn't break it down like I'm a little kid.
You're like, 'It's over, dude, yeah.'"
-"It's not for you." That's exactly what he said.
"It's not for you." And I said, "Okay."
-Wow. -Yeah.
-Actually worked out. It worked out, man.
Wow. I mean --
-We still got on the cover of "GQ," Uncle Chuck.
It still happened.
-It still happened. You can't stop --
You can't stop a train, yeah.
No, no, no. -Yeah.
-I want to talk about
"Lovecraft Country." -Definitely.
-But first, there's a rumor out there I want to ask you about.
It was reported, I think it was last week,
that you might be joining the Marvel cinematic universe
as Kang the Conqueror.
Now, you'd tell me if this is true, right?
There's no one here in the studio. It's just us.
-It's just you and me? -Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Man, I heard the same thing, bro.
I heard the same thing.
It was like, "What? What? What?"
So -- You know.
We -- We apparently have the same source
because I heard it, too.
-God. I knew -- I knew I was gonna get nothing.
Let's talk about "Lovecraft Country."
It's a big hit. Oh, my gosh. Congrats on this.
All my writers love it. Everyone's like,
"That's the show you've got to watch right now."
For anyone who hasn't seen it, how would you describe it?
-It's a story about a family
and a man searching
for their legacy
during a very turbulent time in America.
Right? It takes place during the Jim Crow era.
And they move through this America
as Black people attempting to stay safe,
to grow as a family, and to push the lineage forward.
And chaos ensues on so many levels,
you couldn't even imagine.
-You're great in this.
As we said, the show takes place in the '50s,
but there are a lot of themes, I would say,
in "Lovecraft Country" that feel relevant now.
-Yeah. -Especially given the news
yesterday of the Breonna Taylor grand-jury decision.
Does it feel even more special to be part of this show
where we are right now?
-Um...
You know, that's a -- that's a tough word, isn't it?
"Special." You know?
-Yeah. -Like, it's --
But it does. It feels novel.
It feels -- There's a certain gravity to it.
I wouldn't say weight. I'd say gravity to it.
You know what I mean?
And you know, with Sister Taylor, it's heavy. You know?
'Cause you look at our show, and kind of what I feel
we've done is a lot of folks say,
"Oh, it's so relevant." You know?
I say, "Yeah -- I mean, most things are relevant."
You know what I'm saying?
Like, everybody's in charge of making it.
You know what I'm saying? But nobody's a fool, you know?
But to make something that is both relevant
and, in my opinion, revealing, is a bit of a --
bit of a hat trick, you know?
Because what the show does -- One of the things
I've said before, and I'll say it again,
it's like you put a body cam on an entire culture, you know?
And the advent of the body cam really blew everybody's mind.
Like, "Ooh, my God, I can't believe this [bleep] happening
to so-and-so at these stops."
But to put a body cam on an entire culture
for just a day in the life is such a --
It's such a special thing, as you say, you know.
And those body cams, we're putting them
on our Black bodies, you know.
And we're telling something that allegedly was in the past,
but as we can see,
with Sister Taylor, is very current, you know?
And we reveal that, you know, every Sunday.
So, yeah, "special" is an interesting word.
And I would say that's what it is.
-I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Jonathan Majors in "Lovecraft Country."
Take a look at this.
♪♪
-Her name was Young-ja. She's was a nurse.
Your unit shot some of us at checkpoint
then dragged her away!
-She was a communist sympathizer.
-Is that what you tell yourself? -I was following orders.
Who knows how many lives I've saved by doing what I did?
-Does it have balance, how many have you taken?
The ones that keep you up at night and sobbing?
There's no book for you to escape what you have done.
-You knew this entire time but didn't say a word?
Ji, you made me care for you? What's wrong with you?
-Nothing is wrong with me.
You're the monster!
-Why did you agree to go out with me, then?!
-Because I was going to kill you.
-Jonathan Majors, everybody.
Check out "Lovecraft Country" Sundays at 9:00 p.m.
on HBO and streaming on HBO Max.
And he's on the cover, come on, of "GQ."
Hear that, Uncle Chuck? We'll be right back.