The 2023 Sundance Film Festival featured critically acclaimed films like Past Lives, Fair Play, and You Hurt My Feelings. One film that stood out was a groundbreaking performance by Jonathan Majors with Magazine Dreams. Fast-forward two years later and the film is set to hit theaters. We had the opportunity to sit down with Majors to discuss his portrayal of Killian Maddox.
Magazine Dreams follows the story of amateur bodybuilder Killian Maddox, who battles the limits of his physical body and inner demons to gain recognition. Upon watching this, I thought Jonathan Majors was a shoo-in for an Academy Award nomination and even a potential win because this is one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time. Of course, the controversy surrounding the claims against Majors halted the film’s release date and any awards potential.
Jonathan Majors talks brand new movie Magazine Dreams
FandomWire: I watched this movie back at Sundance in 2023 and was mesmerized by your performance. How does it feel after all this time that the world finally gets to take in Magazine Dreams for themselves?
Jonathan Majors: It’s a moment of racking the weight. You know what I mean? You put the weight up, and you’re just happy that you got your rep. But then there’s the moment afterward where you begin to feel the growth, right? But you also feel the pain, and you then remember everything it took for you to get to that final rep. And not just the day you do it, but all the days that you lifted lighter weight.
We would actually say it on set all the time. Big rep, big rep, big rep, you know this is probably the biggest rep of my career. Not necessarily, well, yes in both ways the movie and getting the movie out to people so. It’s that feeling of relief, gratefulness and the humility, because, you know, two weeks ago you couldn’t do that. A month ago, you couldn’t do that. The situation wasn’t, the table wasn’t set for that.
Los Angeles Media Fund/JF Productions
FW: With the psychically and mentally demanding aspect of portraying Killian, what are some things you did between takes or even after the day of shooting to get out of that headspace?
Majors: The headspace just holds the lines, right? My head just holds the lines, right? Everything else is in my gut and in my emotional life. So there’s that part and the second part is at work I just jog. I just jog around and listen to music.
A lot of times, when I’m playing music out loud, it’s anywhere from Outkast to Limp Bizkit. But when I’m in the trailer, when I’m getting ready, I play a lot of gospel music just to remind myself how this is happening. It only happened through the spirit.
Oh, and then my dogs. My dogs would come to work with me and walk around. They don’t know who Killian is. They just think, Dad’s got oil on today, you know, they’re licking my legs, and that’s fine. But that keeps you grounded. And then my daughter, of course, just having contact with people who know my heart and know me.
FW: What’s something you took from your time with Killian that you adapted to Jonathan, the person?
Majors: Wow, you ready? This was actually only in the completion of it, right? And like, maybe halfway through the middle I thought, there’s so much trauma in this guy, right? Because there are so many moments when he’s sitting there and nothing’s happening. But he’s been triggered by something two scenes ago, one scene ago, and it’s still in him. Right? And he doesn’t metabolize it properly. Right?
And so now, looking at it, I go, Oh, I learned that. I learned where is my trauma? Where do I have to metabolize that? So it doesn’t go that way. You know what I mean? So I can also do what Killian does and become my own hero. You know what I mean? I can do what Killian does and reconstruct my own idea, my own dreams. But a lot of times people, people confuse their character with their trauma, right?
When you get rid of the trauma, you can then actually see someone’s character, right? And that’s something I started sniffing around when shooting it, and something at the conclusion of it I understood. In reality, if you can call this reality, I’m furiously pursuing for myself and try to inspire that in others.
Magazine Dreams hits theaters on March 17.
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