Even though Jonathan Majors has been quietly transforming himself into an other-worldly Marvel villain named Kang, he also gets to play regular human beings sometimes.
Majors stars in Devotion, another high-profile aviation-based movie that will fly into theaters this week. The actor portrays the very real U.S. Navy Officer Jesse L. Brown, a pilot in the Vietnam war. But in order to accurately portray Brown, Majors said he had to be mindful of his Kang transformation.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Majors detailed just how stacked his schedule was while he was training for his big Marvel moment. “I was moving into Kang [in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania]. We had just finished The Harder They Fall. We shot Loki. So we were moving towards Kang at that moment, and so I did begin to train for that,” Majors said.
Devotion was shot last spring, just before Ant-Man went into production, meaning Majors was getting into one character while still playing another. “That’s the interesting thing about this whole physical transformation. As I was shooting Kang, I was training for Damian. And as I was shooting Creed, I was training for a film called Magazine Dreams, which is about an actual bodybuilder. And so I was always in flux and shifting.”
Majors added that it was difficult for him to keep looking like the part while he was still engaging in those 4 AM Marvel training days. “Jesse was a pilot, so he needed to be pretty svelte, but strong, to be able to sit in the cockpit comfortably. I was taller than a lot of the guys, so I had to adjust that, and being wider as well was an issue. So I brought it in, and then towards the middle of it, I started bringing it out to prepare for the next guy.”
The “next guy” will be Dame in the upcoming Creed installment, which is set to hit theaters in March, just two weeks after Ant-Man debuts and likely breaks some more Marvel records. Then, Majors will gear up to lead the next phase of the MCU with Avengers: Kang Dynasty in 2025. After that, hopefully, he will be allowed to sleep in until at least 6 am.
Devotion also stars Glen Powell and Joe Jonas (really) and hits theaters this Wednesday.
