Jeremy Pope says a director implied he couldn't connect with a role because he's gay: 'F--- that'
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Jeremy Pope found himself in the kind of nightmare scenario most queer actors in Hollywood are warned about.
The Orlando-born double Tony nominee of Broadway's Choir Boy and Ain't Too Proud had begun work on a new film. He doesn't say which one but resolves to "vaguely" talk about the project, which happened in the past couple years, in a conversation through Zoom from his Los Angeles home in November. He remembers arriving on set about to start principal photography when, as he puts it, "I got into an altercation with the director." Pope, wearing a deconstructed black sweater, corrects himself: "Or a conversation, I'll say."
The actor, 30, proceeds to use they/them pronouns to disguise which filmmaker he's talking about. "They basically alluded to the fact that my inability to connect with the character was because I was gay," Pope continues. "I began to defend my position and feel unsafe in this creative environment. And then I go, f--- that! I don't have to be here. I don't have to do that. That's not why I'm an artist. You're not my tribe. You don't speak the same language that I do when it comes to why we make something because I know what I'm doing. I know the preparation, I know how I show up for my characters, but for you to deny me and try to make me feel small because of something you read, because of something you heard... like I said, f--- that."
It speaks to a common fear among LGBTQ actors in Hollywood, the kind Pope says once plagued his own friends: if you come out publicly, it will limit your opportunities in the industry. "Once you're gay, you can only play gay," Pope says. "I had to learn and be affirmed that while my queerness is just a layer to who I am, that's not all that I am."
It took a beat for Pope to recover from the hurt of this moment with the unnamed director, but it came with a realization. The former New York theater kid, who once ran around Manhattan chasing his big break while juggling side hustles in catering and photography to stay afloat, is now in a place where he can say no. If he doesn't like a script or doesn't appreciate a situation, he can turn it down. As his career trajectory proves, better things await.
"It was one of those things where it means something to someone when you lead a studio movie. So do it because you'll lead a studio movie, and you'll have that on your résumé," Pope says. "But life had to go, 'No, Jeremy. You do the things that are specific to you, and that speak to your heart.'"
Patti Perret/A24 Jeremy Pope and Raúl Castillo star in A24 film 'The Inspection.'
Around the same time Pope arrived at this conclusion, he received a call: he just got the lead role in The Inspection, director Elegance Bratton's A24 movie about a gay Black cadet training for the Marines in the time of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," inspired by Bratton's own experience and the stories of other former cadets he spoke with. Pope was to fly to Mississippi and film the movie over the course of 19 days.
The actor speaks about The Inspection in a similar manner to how he speaks about Choir Boy, the Broadway production that became his big break. He reflects, "Having this representation would've changed my life, would've offered me peace at moments that felt unbearable, would've affirmed me being an artist moving to New York at 17, that there are going to be possibilities." This was the kind of story that, as he would say, spoke to his heart.
Pope first came out to his parents as a response to Choir Boy. Playing a musically gifted gay Black teen struggling to survive in a prestigious legacy prep school in that first 2013 production, he felt anxious about the idea of being outed if his family ever came to one of his performances. The role also marked his first big job in New York. "There was a lot of personal work that was happening during that season," he admits. When he returned to Choir Boy years later for the 2019 revival, at a time when he says he had been "owning my Black and my queer existence as an artist," things began falling into place.
Pope has played "straight" roles before, notably as Jackie Wilson in One Night in Miami..., but LGBTQ stories have come to punctuate his list of credits. Those include Netflix's Hollywood miniseries, earning an Emmy nomination for his performance as Archie Coleman, an aspiring gay screenwriter facing prejudice in Tinseltown. The performer also joined fellow NYC theater kid Michaela Jae Rodriguez on FX's Pose, playing the doctor boyfriend of Rodriguez's house mother, Blanca. Pope is now back on stage in New York in rehearsals for The Collaboration, in which he plays artist Jean-Michel Basquiat opposite Paul Bettany as Andy Warhol.
"My duvet cover is in L.A., but me? I am everywhere else," Pope jokes.
This gallery of characters made Pope Bratton's first choice for The Inspection, which hones in on Ellis French, a homeless youth shunned by his mother (Gabrielle Union) for his sexuality who enlists in a grueling homophobic Marines academy as a way of earning back her love. The insecure side of Pope questioned whether the director was just saying all that so he would agree to the role.
"Abandoning all those insecurities and just trusting what I felt and our connection, it was undeniable," he says. Tarell McCraney, who wrote the story for Barry Jenkins' Oscar-winning Moonlight and developed Choir Boy, had helped fund Bratton's documentary, Pier Kids, about the lives of Black queer and trans individuals living at Manhattan's Christopher Street Pier. Bratton also knew writer Janet Mock, with whom Pope worked on Hollywood and Pose.
"I knew I wanted Jeremy Pope to be in this movie before Jeremy Pope knew who I was," Bratton separately tells EW. "I mean, who gets nominated for two Tonys for different parts in the same year? I just never heard of anything like that before." Pope was nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Play for the Choir Boy revival and Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for Ain't Too Proud in 2019. "And he's so eloquent," Bratton continues. "He's also very good-looking. His agent passed [the script] to him. We had a meeting after he read it, and we knew it had to be him. Then we had to do the due diligence and get ourselves organized so that we could create the vehicle for the world to get to know Jeremy."
A24 Jeremy Pope stars as Ellis French in 'The Inspection.'
Pope wanted to protect Bratton and his story. The splintered mother-son relationship that anchors the film comes from the director's own parent, who died before The Inspection was finished. "I've had those moments of 2013 me coming out, going, 'Am I oversharing once I give this part of me away?'" Pope says. "You don't get to backtrack and say 'just kidding' or 'that wasn't true.'"
The strength of the movie became everything that went unsaid. Pope would say, "To find what isn't on the page." Some of that came directly from his relationship with Bratton. They didn't have to over-explain. They instinctually knew what each other was talking about thanks to their shared experiences. Some of that came from the construction of the scenes.
"I come from a documentary background, and I don't really see a difference between documentary and fiction film. I think that there are two different processes that get to the same result," Bratton explains. "When we talk about things that are not on the page, we're really talking about: it's written, but where is he standing when it's happening? What is he looking at when it's happening? What do those looks mean?" He hears himself going too far along a tangent. "I don't wanna make it too intellectual and artsy. At the end of the day, it's Black gay Rocky," he jokes. "It's a story of one man who loves his mother so much that he's willing to go into enemy territory in order to win that validation, who ultimately discovers how to love himself."
That story Pope shared about the filmmaker, the one who implied the actor's sexuality inhibited his ability to connect with a role, seems silly now as Pope comes out of The Inspection with another part on the way, that of Sammy Davis Jr. in a film about the singer's affair with actress Kim Novak. Like some of his past roles, The Inspection included, Pope says Davis "opened a door of a perspective in a way in which a Black man can exist."
"Sammy was the ultimate performer," Pope continues. "He did all of the things and constantly had to reinvent and prove his worldliness in a time that just wasn't accepting of his greatness and his genius. So I'm going to be very sensitive when that time comes — if that time comes — as far as how we imbue that and the way we want to tell that story."
That film, titled Scandalous!, is now another lesson for Pope. The project was announced in July 2020 with Mock attached to write, direct, and executive produce. Pope admits, "It's been a journey, but I believe who's meant to be in the room will be in the room." He still believes in the kinds of stories that connect to his heart.
"I hope that through me playing roles like Eddie Kendricks [in Ain't Too Proud], Jackie Wilson, Basquiat, Sammy, that I can just understand the complexity of showing up in your Blackness, being a first in your arena at a time that seems to be just celebrating white and white privilege," he muses. "The responsibility of that, the cost of that, understanding that there is a cost, and how I can be better at protecting myself in that. Sometimes if that exploration, whether I play the role or not, is meant for me just to be a resource as I do my own thing, I'll take that as that's what needed to be. I'm very excited for the things that are to come and the things that I can't see for myself. That's been the most thrilling thing about my journey, and my career is a lot of these things I just never saw, I just didn't know would be possible."
The Inspection is playing in select theaters.
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