Jharrel Jerome Height: How Tall He Is vs. His 13-Foot-Tall I’m a Virgo Character
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If you’ve watched Prime Video’s new absurdist comedy about a 13-foot-tall man, you may be curious to know about Jharrel Jerome’s height and how tall he is compared to his I’m a Virgo character, Cootie.
In I’m a Virgo, Jerome plays Cootie, a 13-foot-tall, 19-year-old raised by his Aunt Lafrancine and Uncle Martisse in Oakland, California. Cootie spent his whole life shielded from the outside world until he’s accidentally discovered a group of teenage political activists.
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In an interview with Screen Rant in June 2023, Jerome explained how he was cast by creator Boots Riley in I’m a Virgo. “Boots emailed me personally, and the title of the email said, ’13-foot-tall Black man in Oakland,'” he said. “I think if you read that, no matter who you are, you’re intrigued and you’re curious as to what that means. So, we sat down for lunch maybe a week later, and he painted the whole vision, and my jaw was to the floor.”
He continued, “Exploring that naivete, and that sort of bright-eyed curiosity, was a lot of fun, because it was really playing with the idea of being in a situation that feels normal, but for him, it’s just not. Even like the intimate scene between him and Flora, that’s such a big moment for him, and not often do you go on set, and you get to do a scene like that and have to pretend like it’s your very first time. Exploring all the newness that Cootie was dealing with was a lot of fun.”
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But back to Jharrel Jerome’s height. So what is Jharrel Jerome’s height and how tall is he compared to Cootie in I’m a Virgo? Read on for what we know about how the creators of I’m a Virgo made him look twice his size without the use of CGI.
What is Jharrel Jerome’s height and how tall is he?
What is Jharrel Jerome’s height and how tall is he? Jharrel Jerome’s height is 5 feet 8 inches or 173 centimeters, according to his IMDb. His I’m a Virgo character Cootie’s height in comparison is 13 feet or 396.24 centimeters, which is more than twice his size.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in June 2023, Jerome explained that the creators of I’m a Virgo made him look twice his size through a combination of forced perspective, miniature sets and a 13-foot-tall silicone doll version of Cootie. “I can imagine that’s the biggest question that people are going to ask for sure, because I’m not even 6 feet tall,” he said. “So they definitely pulled some magic. Boots came up with a really creative idea to shoot forced perspective. So we kind of avoided the CGI and the special effects for most of shooting and we dealt with miniature sets and a 13-foot silicone doll version of me that they designed.”
Jerome also explained that the crew on I’m a Virgo also built six-inch-tall dolls of other characters for him to act with. “So they built two huge, massive dolls that were pretty much moving around on set for all of the over-the-shoulder shots and all of the moments where the other actors were talking to me on their coverage,” he said. “And then for me, they built six-inch dolls of all the other actors, so I would act with them. So at no point during shooting were any of the actors actually looking at each other. We were all just pulling tricks the whole time.”
He continued, “And then we also used miniature sets and designed miniature rooms and even the restaurant, lowering the ceilings. So it was really all me playing on a small size set, so I felt gigantic.”
Jerome also recalled the “challenge” of acting in most of his scenes without other actors. “It was definitely a challenge, definitely one of the biggest challenges I faced on set, technically speaking,” he said. “It’s really a lot about connecting and locking in with your scene partner beforehand in the rehearsal process so that you can bring a chemistry that’s already set to the scene.”
He continued, “Really, I think what’s magic about a couple of actors working together in a scene is when they lock eyes and they can connect and their spirits are intertwined and they can really feed off each other. So we didn’t get the chance to do that, so we had to be able to work that out before. I definitely remember in the beginning, I had to come to Boots a ton of times after ‘Cut’ and ask him, ‘Am I even doing this right?’ Because I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I was doing, but I had so many things to think about at once. Hopefully, my performance comes off well because a lot of it was me spending time in my head doing back flips.”
Jerome and I’m a Virgo puppeteer, Garth Winkless, also confirmed the use of puppets for characters on I’m a Virgo in an interview with The New York Times in June 2023. “You would have walked in and seen a very large house, like 16 feet tall,” Jerome said. “Then, a couple of feet away, the same house but very, very small, like 7 or 8 feet. In the corner of the big house, you’d see this 13-foot silicone doll version of me that you wouldn’t want to look at too long because it was terrifying.”
Winkless added, “We made two of the large-scale puppets — one a lighter weight that we could kind of use different parts of as necessary, and a heavier, more detailed silicone version for very specific shots. We also made 15 half-scale puppets modeled after all the other characters in the show.”
Winkless also confirmed that it was always the idea for the creators of I’m a Virgo to use dolls and puppets instead of CGI. “It’s always better to have something physical there for the actor to play against, and it helps for staging the shots,” he said “And there are some scenes where the puppet appears on camera [essentially as Jerome’s body double].” As for how the puppets were made, Winkless told The New York Times, “We did 3-D visual scans of all the actors at our shop. They go into a room wearing as little as possible and we use a hand-held device with two lenses on it to walk around them and scan their full bodies. We take that scan and print it into a physical, 3-D foam piece. Then that gets sculpted and refined, and we add layers of paint and texture—veins, freckles, hair. If we do our job, it looks pretty much like a human.”
Cinematographer Eric Moynier also explained that Jerome and other actors would film their scenes at the exact same time in different rooms with separate sets of puppets so they could react in real time to each other. “Jharrel and whoever he was acting with would shoot their scenes at the exact same time but in different rooms. Each person would be looking at a scaled puppet of the other, but they could still hear the real person saying their lines and react in real time,” Moynier said.
Jerome added, “At no point did I look at my scene partner in the eyes. We had to rehearse and lock eyes beforehand to build the chemistry that we would need on set.” He continued, “It required a lot of patience. Nothing was easy. A scene that might normally have taken an hour-and-a-half would take three to four hours for us.”
Moynier confirmed that the filming process was a lot more intensive than CGI but the creators believed the emotions were more real for the actors. “Boots would come up with the idea for a shot and then Todd Perry [the visual effects supervisor] and his team would do the calculations to figure out where we needed to place the cameras,” he said. “I would noodle with it and talk to Boots, and we’d just keep fine-tuning until we got it right.”
He continued, “You could do it the easy way and just do everything C.G.I., but then it wouldn’t feel as real. There’s something missing when you shoot a scene that way. You don’t feel like you can touch it.”
Is I’m a Virgo based on a true story?
Is I’m a Virgo based on a true story? The answer is no. However, Jharrel Jerome, who plays Cootie in I’m a Virgo, explained in to Entertainment Weekly in June 2023 that his character is essentially a 13-foot-tall version of creator Boots Riley as a child. “I did [talk to Boots] early on before I started to dive into Cootie’s mind and design stuff myself,” Jerome said. “But from what I know, Cootie is pretty much a 13-foot tall version of Boots when he was a child. So, aside from Boots, and I always laugh at this, but Boots is not a Virgo, so I didn’t understand that part.”
He continued, “But other than that, just the wide-eyed creative energy, feeling confined, and feeling there’s so much more to him—I think Boots just had fun and tapped into his younger self and kind of wrote a version of his childhood where he heightened his reality a bit and created a lot of symbols that related to his own life personally. So once he told me that, I felt it was a lot more personal.”
I’m a Virgo is available to stream on Prime Video. Here’s how to watch it for free.
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