Jessie Usher Is the Reason You Should Watch 'Independence Day: Resurgence'
This article originally appears in the June 2016 issue of ELLE.
On July 3, 1996, Roland Emmerich's alien-invader blockbuster Independence Day landed in theaters, taking Will Smith from Fresh Prince to box-office king in a matter of a weekend. Twenty years later, the extraterrestrials are back in Emmerich's long-awaited sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, and though the film is missing Smith as the hotshot fighter pilot Steven Hiller (he died testing the first alien-technology hybrid jet), audiences will hardly notice-thanks to Jessie Usher.
"A lot of people say I have his laugh," says the 24-year-old, who plays Dylan Hiller, Steven's son and an equally expert wingman tasked with saving the planet alongside Liam Hemsworth. Oh, and he's also grappling with that hero-father-paternal-legacy thing: "It's one of those things that [Emmerich] wanted to come out, but we wanted to make a point of not embodying Will in favor of bringing to life a whole new character."
Luckily, this isn't Usher's first time playing a beloved action hero. He returns next month for season three of Starz's basketball comedy, Survivor's Remorse, on which he plays Cam Calloway, who is loosely based on one of the show's executive producers, LeBron James. "He likes to pop onto set every once in a while. I utilize that time to ask if there's anything I should be doing to get the authenticity across," Usher says. "But we still haven't done the one-on-one game. I've put it out there- whenever he's ready, let's lace it up."
