Jonathan Majors Reveals He Almost Walked Out of His First Marvel Meeting

Kevin Feige and his team are building Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe around Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror.

Majors plays the villain in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” before taking center stage in the upcoming “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The villain is quickly becoming a fan favorite character, but many comic book lovers might be shocked to learn how close the casting came to falling through. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the star revealed that he came very close to leaving his first meeting with Marvel before it even began.

“I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass, but I walked out of my Marvel general [meeting],” Majors said. “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.’”

Fortunately for Majors and Marvel fans everywhere, casting director Sarah Finn came out to meet with him just in the nick of time.

“And I got to the door, but then they said Sarah Finn was going to come,” he said. “We got in the room and we chatted. We were having this great conversation. I think it was three years later that we had the Kang chat. And there’s no trepidation now, especially because of who Kang is. When I said yes, we got the whole picture, and what is being laid out is cohesive.”

While it took another three years for Majors to be cast as Kang, his collaborators certainly think it was worth the wait. In a recent interview with IndieWire’s Kate Erbland, “Quantumania” director Peyton Reed heaped praise on the actor.

“Of course, casting Jonathan Majors was just a dream,” Reed said. “I’ve seen everything Jonathan’s ever done, and I am such a huge admirer of his as an actor and as a human being. … Jonathan is the real deal. I think he’s the most exciting actor of his generation.”

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is now playing in theaters.