Lovecraft Countrycame full circle in its season 1 finale.
And according to Majors, he’s actually dead.
“Magic is ours now,” said Leti to Christina, who was trapped under some rubble.
Jonathan Majors on ‘Lovecraft Country’.HBO
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How dead is Atticus right now?
Is he really dead?JONATHAN MAJORS:He’s dead.
Yeah, he’s dead.
HBO
I was like, “Oh…ok then…This is how it’s going to go.”
So, this is a bit of a surprise to me, as it was to the audience.
How did you feel when you found out Atticus was going to die?I was a bit heartbroken.
Jurnee Smollett on ‘Lovecraft Country’.HBO
I thought, “Aw man!
And the hero is he or she who allows their heart to break.
So, I thought that’s the way it should be.
It is the most organic ending to Atticus in a way.
He’s tormented this entire time by this impending doom, this idea of death.
It is your position because of fate, because of our legacy, because of our family.”
And he passes it on.
It’s living in Leti.
It’s living in baby George, potentially.
So he lives on, like all people do, through other people.
So you found this episode pretty satisfying then?Yeah, from Atticus' perspective, absolutely.
Me, the actor, I go, “Aw man, f—!”
But it’s all good.
It’s the only time he fights it with language.
He says, “There has to be another way.
I don’t want to die.”
Only someone from the spiritual realm can understand death and understand that and what he’s feeling.
The way she broke it down, I think he understood and took that as his charge.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t nervous about it.
You know the scene in church where he’s antsy?
Atticus is a humanist.
He believes in people.
He believes that he can do it.
But the scene with his mother is when it really gets clear.
Where is my God?"
you could feel that.
And it’s in those moments where you do end up feeling a bit untethered.
It could be the universe.
When you get detached from something like that, you feel lonely.
I think that’s one of the things with Atticus: He is a loner by nature.
Was that as fun to shoot as it looked?It was probably more fun.
For me, that’s the most human scene.
We’re not dealing with magic or anything; we’re actually dealing with human connection.
I remember saying, “Uncle George is here,” during that scene because we’re in Woody.
It’s quite beautiful.
But it was surprising for us, too, and very much needed because we shot 10 straight through.
We weren’t doing any overlaps [with other episodes].
So that was the world we were in for two-plus weeks.
You get to see another part of Atticus in that way, too.
You get to see another part of everybody in that moment, because they know the song.
They aren’t just humming along.
Shortly after that, we get to the ritual scene.
It was such a bizarre and strange thing.
I didn’t come off it.
I stayed on as much as possible.
The thing about Atticus is that he is so strong, quick, and his brain is incredible.
So the whole time I kept saying to myself, “Surrender, surrender, surrender.”
Then just the ancestral trope of it.
It’s a very visceral, ancient position to be in.
And that’s always the job: Surrender to the work, surrender to the moment.
In that moment, to let all of that come through you was surprising.
Yeah, I was vibrating, my body was doing crazy things while I was up there.
It’s also episode 10, like this is it.
The athlete in me says, “This is fourth quarter.
You gotta let them have it,” whatever that means.
And I think we did alright.
The finale ends with Leti declaring that she’s taken magic away from white people.
That was the whole objective, protection, protection, protection.
It just so happens that the adversary in the 10 episodes happened to be white.
We simply took away something they’ve abused in [the show’s] world.
The connection to the real world is that we’re all watching, we’re all waiting for November.
So we kind of put the white folks on probation [onLovecraft Country].
“That’s enough of that.”
Or have you made peace with it?Both.
I could never have planned to play Atticus Freeman and to be at the helm of this beautiful story.
But I’m very at peace with where it is now.
I feel like we’ve really told something great.
The complete first season ofLovecraft Countryis available to stream on HBO and HBO Max.
