Image via MGM
Casting Jonathan Majors in Creed III was one of several outstanding choices made by first-time director Michael B. Jordan. Majors has entered the Creed-verse as Adonis Creed’s long-lost childhood friend Damian Anderson. The pair shared a special friendship as children, both having escaped the foster care system where they experienced the horrific treatment many boys and girls in those situations endure. As much as their traumatic past binds them, their love and passion for boxing are at the center of the bond they shared.
Creed III, out this Friday, reunites the pair after 18 years, and while Adonis spent that time becoming one of the world’s greatest boxing champions, Dame spent it behind bars, watching him thrive in his career from afar. As a teenager, Damian had all the skill and prowess to become a boxing champ himself, but a run-in with the law derailed his plans. Now he is back in Adonis’ life, hoping to get a chance to redeem himself with the help of his longtime friend.
As much as there is history and love there, there is also a tension between them, an unspoken rivalry that comes from Dame feeling like an opportunity to succeed in boxing is owed to him. He first approaches Adonis as an old friend looking for guidance until things take a turn and his real intentions are shown; prison has changed Dame, and he doesn’t just want Adonis’ help or to reunite with his friend—he wants revenge.
Image via MGM
That clear switch in tone and emotion could only be done by an actor who is an expert at his craft. Majors delivers a performance that is equal parts endearing, entertaining, emotional, and absolutely terrifying in the moments where his deep-rooted anger is revealed. The actor, who tells Complex he modeled the role after his stepfather who was incarcerated for 15 years, made it clear to the audience that there is no telling how far Damian would go to reach his goal of getting in the ring.
Complex briefly caught up with Majors ahead of the Creed III release, and he shared how he built his character alongside Jordan, talked about the person in his life who inspired Damian, and spoke on how he nailed the emotional transitions throughout the film.
Damian was a collaboration between you and your director, Michael. Can you talk about the one element that you wanted to be sure you brought to this character?
What I wanted to bring to the character, I mean, it’s so, so trite, but me and Mike were just like, “We just got to make it real. Just make it real.” There’s really no such thing as, I mean, if you do bad things over a long period of time, you are a bad guy. It’s just OK, it’s just what it is, but there’s a complexity to it. How many questions can I lay in with Dame? So many things make sense. They may not be positive, they may not feel socially acceptable, but they’re extremely human, and that complexity was something that we didn’t want to shy away from.
Primarily because that’s what was going to give us what we were both really driving for and where we both had to really collaborate was this portrait of brotherhood that we were trying to bring forth. So that was extremely important, as you could see between these two fellas different colors and gradations of emotion. That was all there. Yes. We were really just trying to make him real and unique and of the time as well.
For sure. The prison system affects so many people, especially communities and men of color. When it comes to Damian, the emotions that he feels are very real, understandable, and fair emotions. Are you hoping that people who have been in his shoes see this and see that you don’t have to come out of prison having this feeling of resentment?
Well, I don’t know if that’s my job to do. I think my job was to present a character that we know, as you say, and that they’ve seen in life. And when you watch him, the arc of it is first off, I think what people will see if they are feeling that way is that you’re not alone and that’s not isolated in your feelings. That is a very common way of feeling, and that’s OK. You can feel any way about anything. It’s what you decide to do with it, with those feelings.
For sure.
If feelings are the—I feel like I’m preaching. But to that point, that’s why it was so serious for me, because Dame is very close to [me.] I modeled a great deal of him after my own stepfather who had been incarcerated for 15 years. And so I saw that; the resentment, the ambition, the drive, the fear, the joy, the awe of freedom. The fear of freedom. I saw all that, and so I was trying to put that in Dame.
I’ve read a lot of studies that show that sometimes people get stuck in the age when they dealt with trauma.
Arrested development.
Yes! You portrayed that very well as Damian. In the beginning, he’s very sweet. There’s a child-like innocence about him.
Yeah.
Then the anger comes out and the resentment. Can you talk about dealing with those emotional progressions throughout the film?
Yeah. I mean, great questions. The arc of him was important. Without giving anything away, there’s a moment when, if things are done differently, if Adonis behaves differently in a particular moment in the film, the film is over and we love Dame.
That’s true.
And you don’t see this other side. It’s the fact that what happened that separated them so long ago was connected both to the dream of boxing, right? And to their brotherhood.
Right.
One is achieved and one is put in question, and it’s the change of that, the stakes of that, that make him shift where you see that. That’s something that perhaps Adonis had not even witnessed up until that point, or it’s never been used on him. We always know those guys where it’s like, “Oh, wow, I’m really glad I’m on his team because if that was being done to me, I don’t know what I would do.” You know what I mean?
So that’s the beginning of the next chapter. That’s the shift in the narrative. Yeah. And that’s why it happens because now one objective has been accomplished. Right? We’re just talking around spoilers. One objective has been accomplished, but then there’s the deeper objective that hasn’t been. And because that one’s so deep, the stakes are so high, there are no holds barred.
Catch Jonathan Majors as Damian in Creed III in theaters this Friday.