Jonathan Majors is having a major year, with a March role as boxer Damian Anderson in Creed III, praise for playing a troubled bodybuilder in the upcoming movie Magazine Dreams, and a thirst-trapping photo cover that had Black Twitter talking. His takeover begins with an unsettlingly good performance as the villain Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania –– a role that shows Majors in a way we haven’t often seen him as of late: with all his clothes on. Promo image after promo image this year ––not to mention a big spread in Men’s Health last year––has Majors' body oddy oddy on full display (if you got it, flaunt it, right?) turning him into thee sex symbol of 2023. Ask him if he sees himself that way, and the enigmatic 33-year-old Texas native demurs. “I don’t,” he says flatly, perhaps bored of talking about his body and how people feel about his body since, as noted, a lot of people are talking about Jonathan Majors’ body right now, including Jonathan Majors. “I just do the photoshoots and walk my dog. I think if I took the time to look I’d get it but I think it’s just better for me to keep my eyes on the prize.”

Fortunately, he has more to offer than biceps the size of newborn babies and abs that could shred cheese. A graduate of the prestigious Yale School of Drama, he broke out in the beautiful 2019 film The Last Black Man in San Francisco and has turned out impressive performances in prestige productions ever since. Among his slam dunks: the Western The Harder They Fall, historical drama Devotion, which earned him a 2023 NAACP Award nomination, and of course Lovecraft Country, which got him an Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy nomination, too. All the goodwill he’s earned in such a short time almost makes playing the villain in Ant-Man a gamble: audiences who’ve been rooting for him might find themselves repulsed by Kang, who Majors plays with terrifying conviction. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a big-budget, special effects-packed fantasia that mostly takes place in the Quantum Realm, a sphere outside our space-time continuum. Kang is there in exile, secluded from society due to his sociopathic tendencies and history of genocidal behavior. Majors is a thrill, giving the light-hearted flick gravitas via confident body language and a slow, deliberate manner of speaking that gives Paul Robeson or James Earl Jones vibes. Part of the reason Kang is so memorable is because he's thoroughly pissed.

“He moves through time,” he says. “When you move through time you see everything and you also feel everything. Anger is a righteous emotion. When you see something bad, that anger is to get in there and help you change it. Kang has seen so much that his anger stays activated.” Majors will have to keep that same energy for a while: he’s slated to play the supervillain again in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty due in 2025. It’s a role he’s relishing, obviously aware that seeing a Black man in such a huge tentpole is a big deal. And it’s not lost on him that the anger Kang feels in response to perceived injustices is something Black people can absolutely relate to. “The anger is a response to things that break his heart,” he says. “In my day-to-day life, my personal life, my social life, my political life, I see things that break my heart. And then I get angry. I’ve not lived in all the multiverses but I do watch the news, I do read the newspapers, I am a Black man moving through the world. There is a connection there.” Though he was coy when asked about his own sex-siren status, Majors might think about what sexy looks like more than he let on. Asked which archetype he thinks is sexier, the good guys or the criminals, he pauses for a moment and smirks. “I guess that depends on the cheekbones.” Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania hits theaters Feb. 17.