1 week Ago
“The emotional connection that people have with those characters in that show is unlike anything I think I’ve ever seen in my life,” Jay Ellis says about his role on “Insecure.” Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post NEW YORK — Jay Ellis was ready for action. It’d been nearly a year since the 2021 finale of Issa Rae’s much-loved HBO dramedy “Insecure,” on which Ellis spent five seasons cementing his romantic lead CV as Lawrence.
Primed for a pivot, the 6-foot-3 actor signed on to play a samurai sword-toting basketball player in the 1980s send-up “Freaky Tales.” There was just one problem. Ellis hadn’t done so much as a “hi-yah” since earning a yellow belt in elementary school.
“Actually, I’m not even sure if I got a yellow belt,” says the now-43-year-old actor, who took a crash course in five different styles of martial arts to play Sleepy Floyd — yes, the NBA star, but in the world of “Freaky Tales” he’s more concerned with bloody revenge than a championship ring. There was one kick, from the film’s big fight sequence, that just wasn’t hitting right. “We do it, then do it again.
Do it, do it again, do it again,” Ellis says while demonstrating the move from his side of our booth at Pastis in the Meatpacking District, his right leg piercing the air like a spear. Back on location in Oakland, the movie’s action director Ron Yuan wanted more. “He’s yelling at me, ‘Get your f—ing leg up, Jay’ and I’m like, ‘My ‘f—ing’ leg is up, Ron!’” When writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck showed Ellis the playback, sure enough: His leg was not up.
Ellis immediately announced to everyone on set: “We’re going until I get it!” So they did. “I think everybody thought I’d turned into a crazy person,” says Ellis, who still feels sorry for the stunt man he had to kick square in the chest 14 times. In the end, Ellis didn’t want anyone who sees “Freaky Tales” to leave the theater thinking he didn’t know what he was doing.
“I wouldn’t allow that,” says the former military brat. Film is forever, after all, and the whole action-hero transformation is part of Ellis’s master plan. The man is strategic.
“Look, I’m six-three, 215 pounds, and I played sports my whole life. I think I am built for action,” Ellis says. That means landing the kick.
“I want to build a thing that lasts,” Ellis says. “I want to build a thing that I’m proud of. I want to build a thing that my future kids are proud of.
And I want to be able to look back over a body of work and be like, ‘Damn, I did that.’” Enter “Freaky Tales,” a Tarantino-esque ode to 1980s Oakland, California, that weaves together four underdog narratives. Ellis’s chunk of the story, “The Legend of Sleepy Floyd,” is basically a kung-fu short starring a Golden State Warrior.
Ellis was the first person Boden and Fleck (known for “Half Nelson” and “Captain Marvel”) cast in the film. “He just looks like a basketball superhero. He does,” says Boden, adding that their Sleepy needed to do a lot with his body but also his face.
Sleepy doesn’t talk much. “You don’t necessarily want to the first thing you think to be, ‘Oh yeah, this guy is going to slice people up.’ You want that to come as a little bit of a surprise.
He’s like a sweet, kind of charming guy who gets pushed over the edge. And Jay can also express so much with saying so little.” In one scene, Ellis is barreling across the Bay Bridge on a motorcycle with his trench coat flapping in the wind, looking every bit like the second coming of Wesley Snipes in “Blade.
” While filming, Ellis thought a lot about Snipes – and Keanu Reeves in “John Wick,” Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer,” Donnie Yen in “Ip Man” and Bruce Lee in everything. “Hopefully, this is a character that will stand the test of time and people are like, ‘Oh s—, I want to see more of that,’” Ellis says. But he knows that “the town’s going to do what the town is going to do.
” Hollywood loves a sure thing, and the actor’s run on “Insecure” solidified him as a romantic lead. “Everybody’s love interest goes through my inbox at some point, because people are reactive,” he says. “And that’s cool.
I get it. They appreciate that I did a thing and I appreciate that. But that doesn’t mean that I have to be reactive.
” Jay Ellis in New York. Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post In other words: hi-yah. To truly understand Ellis’s perch in pop culture, and how far he’s branching out now, you should know that he’s been slapped in public by a stranger – twice.
Fans of the actor’s most popular character can’t seem to separate the guy standing in front of them at the airport from the character he played on TV. Love him or hate him, Lawrence, the on-again, off-again (and then, at last, on-again) love interest of Rae’s character on “Insecure,” is something of an emblem. From 2016 to 2021, the character went from the dusty unemployed boyfriend, had a major second season glow-up, became the very complicated ex and then was finally “the one.
” The roller coaster was real. And “Insecure” fans still can’t let go. “Just last week in L.
A. I had a woman scream at me as she walked past me on the street. ‘You Issa’s boyfriend! You Issa’s boyfriend.
’ She did not want to talk to me. She did not want to engage,” Ellis says, shaking his head while chuckling. It doesn’t annoy him; if anything he’s in awe of his impact.
“The emotional connection that people have with those characters in that show is unlike anything I think I’ve ever seen in my life.” So much so that for a while he didn’t want to do another TV show. His experience on “Insecure,” both professionally and personally, was too perfect.
Deep bonds were forged on that set. What could top it? Coming in close is the new Netflix show “Running Point.” Ellis plays the head coach of a very Lakers-like Los Angeles team called the Waves, opposite Kate Hudson as the team’s new president.
“Running Point” co-creator Ike Barinholtz says that while he loved Ellis on “Insecure,” he didn’t fully understand the height of the actor’s “riz level” until the pair were out to dinner in L.A. “Jay and I were by far the least famous people in the group, and when he walked in, literally every person in the restaurant strained their necks to get a look.
Women, men, the busboys — everyone was gazing at him,” Barinholtz writes in an email. Casting Ellis as Coach Jay (“I mean, his name is Jay. We perhaps weren’t that creative with that part!”) seemed like a long shot because the actor is always booked and busy.
Ellis figured he’d “pop into a show” real quick. You know, hang out for a couple of episodes. But by the end of shooting the first season (Netflix has already renewed it for a second) the actor found himself “falling in love with everybody.
Like, it’s a family that you’re ultimately building.” Ellis’s fascination with film began as an only child growing up on military bases around the country. His dad was a jet mechanic in the Air Force.
His mom is a banker. Because his birthday is two days after Christmas, a notoriously empty time on base, every year his parents took him to the movies. “I loved what it did for me and my family.
And so older me was like, ‘Oh, could I do something like that for other people?’” “In thinking about these pieces and about what it is I want to do next and building to that leading man career, I just got to keep taking my steps. I can’t be reactive,” says Ellis, who’s getting advice from Hollywood’s forever leading man. That’d be Tom Cruise.
“Let me see if I can find the text,” says Ellis, who appeared in “Top Gun: Maverick” alongside Cruise in 2022 and could think of no one better to ask about his action-hero metamorphosis in “Freaky Tales.” How do I do this? Cruise responded: Jay Ellis in “Top Gun: Maverick.” Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures “First off, congratulations,” Ellis reads from his phone.
“I look forward to seeing you in this character. I understand the situation you’re in. Been there so many times .
.. I’ll tell you exactly what I do and how it has worked for me.
” What followed was a block of text so thorough that one has to imagine the actor keeps the information in a notes app, ready to dole out this hard-won knowledge to any younger movie star brave enough to seek it. “Top Gun” producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that Cruise takes his guru role seriously, and the actors that truly listen get the most out of it. Ellis, he says, is one of them.
“He’s doing it all the right way and he had a good teacher,” Bruckheimer says. “Tom always said, ‘Pick the movie and make the part great.’ Jay will pop out of every part he does.
Certain actors light up the screen and he’s one of those guys and that’s special.” Cruise, 62, warned Ellis about staying limber in between action sequences. He’d have to perform at the top of his ability in one shot and then wait 40 minutes for the cameras to set up for a different take.
In the meantime, Ellis’s body would cool down, his muscles would tighten up and then the directors would call action. “He said get you some warming pants,” says Ellis. “Think of an electric blanket but it’s basically pants and a jacket.
” And it was because of Cruise that Ellis spent 20 minutes before bed watching videos of himself learning his fight choreography. The “Mission: Impossible” star told him to record every kick, every punch, everything. “Because this was an indie, I didn’t have a ton of time for training.
And I had even less time to learn the choreography,” says Ellis. Studying himself like a basketball player reviews game footage, he came to set more than prepared each day. Adds Yuan, from the “Freaky Tales” production: “We had to make Jay look like Bruce Lee and he flew himself up on his own dime to train.
Jay is just above and beyond and not once did he complain.” Why complain when you’re doing the exact thing you want to be doing? The goal, says Ellis, is to challenge perceptions. Those that belong to others and maybe even the one reflected in the mirror.
Of course he’s built for romance and action. But what else? Which is how we find ourselves outside of the Lucille Lortel Theatre, a playhouse in the West Village. This summer Ellis will star in the off-Broadway play “Duke & Roya,” a love story between a hip-hop star and an Afghan interpreter.
He hasn’t been onstage since a community theater production in high school. But there’s a plan here, too. “Yeah, I’m terrified,” says Ellis, standing on the sidewalk in front of the theater, which is currently home to the Chekhov adaptation “Vanya” starring Andrew Scott.
The New York Times’ starred review has been blown up and framed next to the entrance. The actor mentions being terrified a few more times. But all the greats he admires, the careers that span decades, they all did some time in the theater.
This is his. “It’s an opportunity for me to go out and push myself and prove to myself that I can do it,” he says, looking up at a marquee that will soon feature his name. “And then other people will be like, ‘Damn, he did that,’ you know?” We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers.
At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It’s a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others. Read more.
.. We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
For those stories that we do enable discussion, our system may hold up comments pending the approval of a moderator for several reasons, including possible violation of our guidelines. As the Maine Trust’s digital team reviews these comments, we ask for patience. Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday and limited hours on Saturday and Sunday.
Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use . More information is found on our FAQs .
You can modify your screen name here . Show less Please sign into your Press Herald account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe .
Questions? Please see our FAQs . Your commenting screen name has been updated. Send questions/comments to the editors.
.
