The world of HBO’sLovecraft Countryis a scary place.
For both Tic and Majors, having family by your side makes all the difference.
ENTERATINMENT WEEKLY: What drew you toLovecraft Countrywhen you read the scripts?
Elizabeth Morris/HBO
But what I saw off top with Atticus was, this is how real people come up.
You hear it all the time, as you make your way through high school, etc.
“I hope you didn’t peak in high school, boy.”
Jonathan Majors and Courtney B. Vance in ‘Lovecraft Country.'.Elizabeth Morris/HBO
Atticus did not peak in high school.
But what got me off top was, I’m a theater kid.
I played sports, I did all that, but I was a theater kid.
Elizabeth Morris/HBO
I experienced being bullied.
I experienced hiding away and being by myself in books.
I too had an estranged father.
There are so many elements that [I related to].
I was born in California but raised in Texas.
Then I end up in New York, and then I head up to Connecticut.
I began to witness society as it changed [from place to place].
And then there’s the monsters.
That to me was like, “Oh, this is cool.”
And there’s no cape.
[Tic isn’t] a masked crusader.
It was something that everyone could relate to, and then magic happened.
What did you mean by that?
He’s been banished; the war for him was self-banishment.
And he lives in banishment in Florida before we meet him.
That’s where he’s coming from [in the pilot].
As you’re beginning to see, his heart is what drives him.
Then the Macbeth element is that he’s so mysterious.
You have no idea what’s really going on in his mind, and he’s haunted.
As we know, Macbeth is haunted, he sees ghosts.
Especially in episode 2, Atticus is dealing with monsters.
As a Black man, you are living in a place and you are constantly unsafe.
What that ends up doing is, you put yourself in constant danger.
The thing that is in jeopardy, it’s not your happiness it is your breath.
It is your life.
But there are moments when it got really, really real for me.
I do not drive now, for a reason.
You know, I’m a 6-foot Black man, and I’m built the way I’m built.
Driving is a very stress-inducing thing for me to do.
And so you notice in the first episode, that’s the worst nightmare.
That slow chase [with the cop] is probably the most tense thing I had experienced.
You see a cop car, it could be a hearse.
So that sequence was extremely frightening.
How did you and your costars come down from those intense days?
[We formed] this kind of fellowship.
You just got to talk and keep it loose.
You want the tension.
But when it all came down, when it was all over, we had each other.
And that’s a great theme in the [show]: that this family is so tight.
And that includes Leti, who’s not a part of the blood family.
Speaking of Leti, how would you describe Atticus’ relationship with her?
It’s funny, man.
When we were shooting, Atticus was not smiling.
He just wasn’t a smiling man.
And when he sees Leti, he lights up.
And then he meets Leti, and that heart begins to somehow come together.
What did it feel like to jump through so many projects in a short period of time?
Because when you’re in drama school, you’re playing multiple characters at once.
And so, I didn’t book them all at the same time.
But once you’ve played them [both] out, the body remembers, the instrument remembers.
And so Mont had certain elements and style to him, and a way of speaking.
And then I ran off and do the pilot forLovecraftafter that.
I could feel that segment in my body.
Where’s Atticus now?"
And you develop him.
And thenSpike Leecomes along and you got to go into a whole different world [forDa 5 Bloods].
I think that’s the cheat sheet: All these worlds are very different.
So pretty much what I had to do was find a way to become invisible in the world.
Lovecraft Countrypremieres Sunday, Aug. 16, at 9 p.m.
