Jonathan Majors Bulks Up, Strips Down, for Upcoming Movie

In the military bromance "Devotion," Jonathan Majors delved deep and stripped down emotionally to portray the deep-seated pain of enduring bigotry and the healing, sometimes tough, tenderness of male bonding. Now, in a first-look photo for his next film, "Magazine Dreams," the ripped actor makes a more physical revelation, bravely posing in the nude, Popsugar reported.

Majors, who shot to fame in 2019 when he starred in "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," took on the role of Ken Jones in the gay rights miniseries "When We Rise" and was featured in the Spike Lee film "Da 5 Bloods," but the actor might currently be best known for his role in HBO's "Lovecraft Country." That could change soon, since his calendar is filling up with a host of high-profile parts.

"Before fans meet his boxing character Damian in 'Creed III,' the 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' actor will star in a forthcoming drama where he plays an amateur bodybuilder," Popsugar recounted.

"Magazine Dreams," which Popsugar described as a "dark drama," follows an amateur boxer named Killian, who, IMDb says, is "A Black amateur bodybuilder [who] struggles to find human connection..." The logline adds that the movie is an "exploration of celebrity and violence."

Men's Health noted that Majors does his own stunt work; he puts in the effort required to build the sorts of muscles he needs for roles like Kang the Conqueror in the MCU's "Quantumania."

"Over the past year, he's packed on ten pounds of muscle to play Kang, an extra five for 'Creed,' and six more for 'Magazine Dreams,'" Men's Health noted. "And he's whittled his way down to 5 percent body fat to look believably ripped."

But it's not simply a matter of bulk; the same sorts of deep-lying emotions he tapped into for the rapport he shared with "Devotion" co-star Glen Powell externalize, Majors suggested, in the physical self.

Damian, his character in "Creed III," "had lost something, and that hole is what made him work the way he worked," Majors told Men's Health. "When you see Dame's body, you go, Oh, that makes sense. You don't look like that and be happy with life."

But the physique of his "Magazine Dreams" character, on the other hand, is "a pain body," Majors said. "A lot of guys build their bodies by anger, which is a secondary emotion. And those bodies don't look right," the actor noted. "Those bodies don't engender emotion."

That might be debatable. Majors' first-look image from "Magazine Dreams" seems likely to engender plenty of emotion, not the least of which is enthusiasm to see the film, which is already on the lineup for next month's Sundance Film Festival.