Jonathan Majors’ big breakout role was the sensitive, soft playwright Montgomery in 2019’s The Last Black Man In San Francisco. Since then, his career has taken off with enormous speed, and the characters he’s becoming known to embody are anything but soft. Whether it’s convicted felon-turned-world heavyweight boxer Damian Anderson in Creed III, the time-traveling supervillain Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or his upcoming role as a bodybuilder in Magazine Dreams, the dude has had a consistent reason to stay absolutely jacked, much to the delight of the internet which responded exactly as you’d expect.
Given that Jonathan Majors has been playing multiple hulking characters in a row, one may think that the goal would be maintenance, but it turns out they all still have a different approach given their various “weight classes.” I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the Creed III cast in anticipation of the film's theatrical release. When I brought up the subject of his consistently ripped characters, Majors said this about their varied approaches, specifying that Kang is in a weight class all on his own:
Well, they're all different weight classes. You know, I try, I like to think they're all champs, but they're all different weight classes, you know? Kang is in the Avenger class. You know, he's in the Marvel class. That’s a certain, certain stature. You know, I know he's going to move a certain way.
Given how many projects he’s been taking on that require a certain look, this sounds absolutely exhausting. It would be one thing if the workout routine was somewhat consistent, but he has to change it up for every role. While Jonathan Majors didn’t explain exactly what the Avengers weight class entails, he seems to have an idea of it in his mind, and one would assume it involves taking down some superheroes. When he mentions Kang's “stature,” it’s clear that his size is something he uses to aid in his performance.
The good news is that Majors seems to enjoy the work he puts into his body, and a fair amount of it is still maintenance, as he went on to explain:
I mean, fitness and health have always been the big thing for me, you know? But the opportunity to apply those things directly to cinema is new, because these characters are a bit, for lack of a better term, extreme. You know, like these guys do that, you know, like this guy is a boxer, you know, world heavyweight boxer. Picture a bodybuilder, you know, a real bodybuilder. So those things have to be done. So a lot of it is about maintenance.
Even though these characters are in different weight classes, the one common element is that they’re all huge, so maintenance must play a role in some capacity. After all, Majors did recently explain his routine for staying in shape during the filming of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which sounds oddly intricate. Ant-Man 3 isn’t getting the best reviews, which has garnered some surprised and rather honest reactions from those involved, including writer Jeff Loveness. Regardless, Majors has been praised for his Kang performance, and the MCU still has big plans for the villain in the coming years.
Much like his characters, Jonathan Majors is in a class all of his own, and his intense career trajectory shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. You can see him in Creed III now! Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is also still in theaters, and you can look forward to more from Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has release dates lined up through 2026.
