-Our next guest is an Emmy-nominated actor
you know from TV shows such as Marvel's "Loki"
as well as HBO's "Lovecraft Country."
He stars in "The Harder They Fall,"
which is now streaming on Netflix.
Let's take a look.
-You here for your damsel in distress?
♪♪
-You don't look hard of hearing.
So I'm gonna ask you again.
Where's Ruby's book?
-Well, clearly... you don't know me.
-Please welcome to the show Jonathan Majors.
How are you Jonathan?
-[ Laughs ] Hey. What's up?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Ooh.
-Now, I'm a little bummed you're not here in person,
but I am hopeful that I'll bump into you next week.
You're going to be here in the city, in this building
hosting "SNL." Are you excited?
-Am I excited?
Uh, hell yeah, man, I am. I am.
And when I see you, we're going to do a tutorial.
And you're going to do some tricks.
You're going to show me some things.
-I'm going to show you where all the bathrooms are,
and that's it.
-Okay. -The rest -- It doesn't matter.
You have to learn the rest on your own.
-Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man.
It's -- It's wild, man.
I feel like it's gonna be drama school on steroids.
-I think that's a very good way of looking at it.
And I actually heard something,
and I believe it started for you in drama school --
that you keep hours
that might be very conducive to the "SNL" schedule,
that you go to bed at 10:00 p.m. at night
and wake up at 4:00 a.m.
Is this a thing you actually still do?
-I do. I do. As much as possible.
-I hate you.
[ Laughter ] -It's tough.
-Yeah. -But it's helpful. It's helpful.
And when it gets crazy, night shoots,
you kind of just revert back to drama school,
which is, like, class till 8:00,
and then you start rehearsals at like 10:00 at night
and then work through the night
and then start back again at 7:00 in the morning.
So it's like that.
Or you can go to a newborn schedule,
which I don't know if you know.
That's also hell. -Yeah.
-We'll be all right. Then on top of that, jet lag.
So I'm looking forward to it. -Yeah, that's right.
You are going to be jetlagged
'cause you're in London right now.
You know, we just had Kumail here from a Marvel movie.
You are working on the new "Ant-Man and the Wasp" film.
And this is so nice. You said you wanted to read off
like five or six spoilers for us.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, so, first, I want to say...
[ Mouthing words ]
-[ Laughs ] Oh, n-- Ohh!
I hate when Zoom cuts out!
[ Laughter ]
So you -- This Western is an all-Black cast,
and it's a fictional story, but you're playing real people.
-Yeah. -Did you know anything
about Nat Love, the cowboy you're playing in this film?
-I did not know much about Nat Love.
However, I'm from Texas, so I knew a lot about cowboys.
I knew a lot about the rodeo, to a degree.
But not much about Nat Love.
He did write a book, a 70-page autobiography,
which essentially just talked about how cool he was.
And so I said, "Okay, I got that."
Let me just apply that to this script and take it from there.
But, no, I didn't know much about him.
-Did you -- Coming from Texas
and spending some time on a farm,
did you know your way on a horse?
Were you comfortable horseback riding in the film?
-I -- Yeah. I would say --
So, I did grow up on a farm.
I grew up also in Dallas --
Duncanville, Texas. For those who know, you know.
But on this little farm in Killeen, Texas.
And I would say -- Truth be told,
I probably know more about roosters...
-Okay.
-...than I do about horses
when I started, you know, doing the horse riding in films.
I had a run-in with a rooster on a farm.
-Okay. -It's pretty -- I don't want --
I have to break it down. Because roosters. Okay.
So, on farms -- On my farm, I would go out and get the eggs.
And there was a particular rooster on a particular day
in which I walked in, and this rooster was not about it.
I don't know if you know much about roosters, but they're
quite territorial and they're quite aggressive.
And unlike most animals, roosters fight to the death.
-[ Laughter ] -And so -- Yeah.
So, I go in to get the eggs this one day,
and this particular rooster on this particular day
was not happy with this particular boy.
And so I go get the eggs, and I come out.
And the rooster is -- I'm about 9 years old,
and this rooster is probably the size of a Rottweiler,
to me, at the moment.
And he comes at me,
and me and this rooster stay in this pen for about 12 minutes.
-[ Laughter ] -And I leave.
Yeah. I leave with my shins all tore up.
And I go into the house,
and I come back with a water hose, just to make it even.
And me and this rooster have it out some more.
And then my grandpa comes in and grabs me and gets -- I g--
I get a butt-whupping all the way from the pen to the house.
As I learned about roosters,
they're territorial and they also don't like water.
Because if they get wet, they can get sick.
And that was our livelihood.
So they're territorial,
and they don't like to bathe, apparently, so...
-When you were getting your butt-whupping,
was the rooster watching
and saying, "You've played right into my hands"?
-I bet he was, yeah. -[ Laughter ]
-You know, one of the cool things about this film
is there's a great musical element.
There's a lot of kind of songs
from the kind of performers you wouldn't expect in a Western.
Jay-Z was a producer on the film.
And you got to sing a little yourself.
Was that one of the things that drew you to it?
-I mean, that's one thing about creatives, right?
I mean, you know this.
Like, you get us around each other for a long enough time,
we're gonna try everything.
You know, so you got the horse riding, you got the acting.
The music element was just -- just kind of came out of it,
you know, primarily because our director, Jeymes Samuel, is --
I mean, he comes from -- he's Seal's brother.
He runs his own band.
But, no, I didn't know it was going to happen right away...
but really leaned into it when it came.
You know, with Jay, you know, with Mr. Carter,
you knew it was gonna be musical.
Had no idea it was gonna be that musical.
You got Jay-Z, you got Kid Cudi, Ceelo, Laura Mvula.
I mean, it's kind of crazy. [ Chuckles ]
-It's an amazing film, and you're great in it.
And I really can't wait for you to be here next week.
Thanks so much for making time for us. We really appreciate it.
-Oh, my pleasure, man.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Jonathan Majors, everybody.
"The Harder They Fall" is streaming on Netflix now.
And next Saturday, November 13th, don't miss "SNL"
with host Jonathan Majors and musical guest Taylor Swift!