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THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019
T
he DNA ofMontgomery
Allen was there in the
screenplay for “The Last
Black Man in San Fran-
cisco.” But “anyone who
has siblings knows DNA
does not a person make,”
says Jonathan Majors, who plays Mont-
gomery in the film. “The ‘how’ is kind of the
actor’s work.”
“Mont” is best friend to Jimmie Fails — a
heightened version of the real Jimmie Fails,
who co-wrote the film’s story with director
Joe Talbot inspired by his own life. Fails is
fixated on the grand house with a “witch
hat” roof that he brags was built by his
grandfather, and he and Mont take over the
house when it suddenly becomes vacant.
It’s a story about gentrification and racial
sidelining, and a coming-of-age tale — but
told in the romanticized realm of fable.
“It’s an exploration of something so spe-
cific that it does kind of become magical,”
Majors said, “like in the way that the town is
really being examined. If you look at any-
thing under a microscope, it seems impos-
sible that that’s actually happening. There’s
beauty in it, and there’s complexities that
you wouldn’t know if you just saw it.”Majors, 30, studied acting at Yale. Small
roles in “Hostiles” and “White Boy Rick”
preceded his performance in “Last Black
Man,” which Manohla Dargis of the New
York Times called “a mournful heart-
breaker.”
Mont is a sensitive artist always armed
with a sketchbook, but he earns money as a
fishmonger. He’s also an aspiring actor and
director. He lives with his blind grand-
father, played by Danny Glover, and shares
his bedroom — as well as a rarely seen pla-
tonic intimacy — with Jimmie. Even though
the film has fable qualities, Majors didn’t
give a larger-than-life performance.
“No, I think it’s natural,” he said. “That
individual literally thinks differently. And
how you think is how you behave, right? So
he behaves truthfully under his real circum-
stances — at least that was my hope in por-
traying him.”
Majors and Fails became inseparable
during the shoot, developing a very real
friendship chemistry. The film’s star had no
prior training or experience in front of the
camera, so Majors became a de facto acting
coach — just like his character.
“We had such an ease between us,” said
Majors. “I could see where he was coming
up against unknown territory, and I just
said, ‘This is possibly how you can navigate
it.’ He in character, and me in character, and
I’d just tell him — as Mont would do — ‘Well,
you could try it this way.’ ”
One of the great, revealing Mont mo-
ments in the film is when Kofi ( Jamal
Trulove) gets into a tense altercation with
his group of macho guys. Mont walks up to
the fray like a theater director and says to
the gathering of toughs: “Good, good, excel-
lent. Great news is, you’re all doing marvel-
ous work.” The fight defuses through sheer
bewilderment at this enigmatic, tender-
hearted act.
Majors auditioned with that scene, but in
the original script Mont does a magic trick.
On the day they shot it, he and Talbot felt
that wouldn’t work anymore, and the end
result was “full-on improvisation.”“There’s a guy, Paul Mullins, who di-
rected me one summer in ‘Our Town,’ ” Ma-
jors said, “and he would always say ‘Good,
good, excellent.’ I just thought it was the
funniest thing in the world, you know. If
you’ve been in drama school for eight years,
you’ve got teachers in your head all the time.
It was a full tribute to them.”
Majors was born in Lompoc, Calif., and
moved to Texas as a boy. His mother is a
Methodist pastor. Jumping around between
cultures — including Yale — as a black man
made him keenly observant, with a gift for
switching codes.
“You speak to be understood, right?” he
said. “And you’re understood so you can be
felt. And you’re felt so you can get what you
want.”
That ability fed into his portrayal of
Mont, who studies the foulmouthed speech
patterns of the street gang as well as the im-passioned rhythms of the street preacher —
and tries them all on in a big, theatrical per-
formance at the climax of the movie.
“He has multiple codes,” Majors said,
“and he can take on those codes so quickly
because he’s so empathetic. I want to know
what Mont’s point of view would be on
Donald Trump.” He laughed.
Montgomery was modeled after a friend
of Talbot and Fails’ named Prentice. Before
production began, Majors said he could do
an “interview project” on the real Prentice
and capture his mannerisms and person-
ality. But he strongly suggested bringing his
own, original character to life — which Tal-
bot gladly accepted.
“No one wants to say, ‘OK, I think there’s
a Picasso here, but just draw this,’ ” said Ma-
jors,“which is anathema to the Montgomery
that we meet, who is individual and cannot
be defined.” 8Shared
struggle
THE CONTENDERS
Jonathan Majors,
who plays a sensitive
artist in ‘The Last
Black Man in San
Francisco,’ helped
his costar navigate
‘unknown territory.’
BY TIM GREIVING
Wally SkalijLos Angeles Times