Jonathan Majors – who plays Kang the Conquerer in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – revealed he walked out of his first meeting with Marvel after executives kept him waiting too long.
Majors stars as the imposing supervillain in the soon-to-be-released third instalment in the Ant-Man saga starring Paul Rudd as the titular hero.
However, Majors revealed in a new interview with Vanity Fair that his Marvel journey was nearly over before it began.
Asked whether he had any trepidation about signing on to film several movies as the character, Majors replied: “No, not once I realized who the character was and the potential for the character. I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass, but I walked out of my Marvel general [meeting].”
The Lovecraft Country star continued: “This was a long time ago. I had just gotten out of drama school and I’m running around town and I’m sitting in the office.
“I grew up in a very particular way and I don’t want to waste nobody’s time. So I got in there and they’re just busy. And I was like, ‘I’m supposed to be here, right?’ It got long and I went, ‘I’m just going to go. It’s cool. I’ll just go.’”
Luckily for Marvel, Majors never made it out the building. “I got to the door, but then they said [casting director] Sarah Finn was going to come.”
Majors made his debut as the character in the Loki TV series, but Quantumania marks Kang’s first big-screen appearance since it was announced he will face off against the Avengers in a future film, titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which will be released in 2025.
Those who have seen Quantumania are making the bold claim that Kang is scarier than former Avengers villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) ever was.
In her three-star review for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey singled out Majors’ performance as Quantumania’s biggest draw. “Majors has pulled off the seemingly impossible,” she wrote. “It’s as if he’s forced Marvel to orbit around the force of his own charisma.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is out in cinemas from 17 February.
