Jay Ellis Has Entered His “Badass” Era

Yes, wanted you to think, “Oh shit, that dude’s crazy,” when you see his character in . The 43-year-old actor-producer, best known for his roles in , The Game and Top Gun: Maverick, was ready for a new adventure when he signed onto the Anna Boden- and Ryan Fleck-directed film, which sees him portray former NBA player Eric “Sleepy” Floyd and follows four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland, California. “I wanted a badass,” Ellis tells The Hollywood Reporter of the role. “I wanted a character that people are like, ‘Oh shit, that dude’s crazy.’ I wanted a dude that you’d be like, ‘If we in a street fight, I want him. I want that guy with me,’ and that’s what I kind of set out to prepare.” Related Stories And he did, in fact, prepare quite intensely for the role, doing martial arts and weapons training multiple times a day for weeks ahead of filming, in addition to pulling inspiration from some of his favorite action performances. Below, Ellis gets candid about the training for his Sleepy Floyd role in Freaky Tales, working with the late Angus Cloud in one of his final roles, his reaction to getting a quick season two renewal, what he took away from Insecure, his dream project and more. Looking back, what made you first want to pursue a career as an actor?  I didn’t tell my parents, I’m not gonna lie. Because my dad is very salt of the earth, like, he was a mechanic in the Air Force, he’s a mechanic for American Airlines now. My mom went to college at 27. … So to see these two teenage parents start out with absolutely nothing and see what they worked for, and then be like, “Hey, I know you guys worked really, really hard for me to go to college and like do all these things, but guess what? I’m gonna be an actor.” The craziest industry to go into when it comes to success rates, but it took me a while to actually admit to them and tell them that I was doing it. … We live in a society where passion is talked about, but doesn’t seem like it’s always rewarded. So trying to explain to my mechanic father and my banker mother that this is the thing I am most passionate about on the planet and the only thing that I can do. Not that they were discouraging in any way, but I felt like I couldn’t explain that passion enough in a way that would make them be like, “Yeah, go do it.” So I hid it for a really long time.  How excited are you for your new film, Freaky Tales, to be released wide after premiering at Sundance last year? Very excited! What a journey. I’ll back up and say, I actually met [directors Boden and Fleck] when they were doing this limited series for FX called Mrs. America that Cate Blanchett started in and I starred in, and fell in love with their process, their care, their concern, their collaboration. I just found it one of the best creative experiences I had ever had. So I got called to do this movie and literally I said yes. They don’t know this, but I actually told my team, “I don’t have to read it. I’ll do it because I loved them and trusted them so much.” Then I read it and I was like, “Oh shit, I gotta do this movie!” There were so many things: I’m a basketball fanatic, I grew up going to the Bay Area ‘cause I had an uncle who lived in the Bay, so I spent a ton of time there. And I got to think about this character Sleepy Floyd, who I play, and I got to think about it in this way of like all of these badass action characters and martial arts characters who I’ve gotten to love and idolize. … I think people are gonna love it. If you’ve ever been an underdog, if you’ve ever felt like you were looked over or left behind in any way, this movie is for you.  Jay Ellis in ‘Freaky Tales.’ Lionsgate/Everett Collection You have quite a long and intense action sequence in the film. How did you prepare for that? First of all, I love playlists. So Ryan and Anna and I had a conversation super early and they sent me a playlist and then I built off of that playlist. Then I had to figure out what my workouts would look like and nutrition would look like. Also I’m playing Eric “Sleepy” Floyd, who is a real human, so I had to think about: how did he move, how did he talk, just little things that could help me slide into who he was. I didn’t get to spend a ton of time with him before I started filming, but I watched every single interview I could. I watched as many games as I could. Then I thought about for all the action stuff, some of my favorite characters and performances, like Ip Man with Donnie Yen or any Bruce Lee movie, John Wick, Jason Bourne, Blade, Uma Thurman and Kill Bill, very specifically for her Katana work because I knew that I was gonna be using swords. Then I got to meet a lot of the stunt team and set it up in a way where basically I was working out three times a day, six days a week. I would do martial arts in the morning for two to three hours, and I probably had to learn five or six different styles of martial arts for this movie. Then I would do resistance training for an hour, and then another one of my stunt guys would show up and I would just do weapons training for two to three hours. You know, this is an indie so we didn’t have a ton of time to prepare. … I wanted a badass. I wanted a character that people are like, “Oh shit, that dude’s crazy.” I wanted a dude that you’d be like, “If we in a street fight, I want him. I want that guy with me,” and that’s what I kind of set out to prepare. And again, thinking about Sleepy and wanting to honor Sleepy.  What was it like working on a project with an incredible cast, including Pedro Pascal, Tom Hanks, Normani and the late Angus Cloud? This film was actually shot in sequential order for the most part, so I didn’t shoot until the very end. I was actually down here in L.A. training while they were filming the punk stuff and Dominique [Thorne] and Normani’s story and Pedro’s story, with obviously the legend that is Tom Hanks. There was a stretch in that five weeks where I was training, where I started going back and forth to Oakland every couple of days, so I would creep on the set. Then my very first scene shooting with everybody is the scene where I’m on the staircase. It’s at the very end of Sleepy’s story, but I’m walking down this very long staircase at the Oakland Coliseum for this monologue, and that was my first time getting to see everybody, and kind of have a fan moment. Then once I got into my story, I got to shoot with Angus. That was my second day of filming, my first day of filming in that house, and what a good dude. We have all lost a good one, a real one. He’s an absolute sweetheart, one of the most tender people you’ve ever met, one of the funniest people you’ve ever met, one of the most authentic, truly himself people that you’ve ever met, and he brought that every single day. It’s an honor to have had the opportunity to share the screen with him.  Your other new project, Running Point, got a quick season two renewal. What was your reaction to that? It was a very quick renewal. Obviously I follow Kate [Hudson], so I saw it on IG, like I didn’t know it was renewed already. I will say I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of a few things that have kind of worked and kind of hit and been a big deal, both in TV and in film. You know the feeling when you have something that’s really special? I think we all thought that. We all had so much fun working together and playing off of each other, and I think everyone is so perfectly cast for this show. … So to learn that it was picked up, I have never been a part of anything that got picked up that fast. That was crazy.  Jay Ellis and Kate Hudson in ‘Running Point.’ Katrina Marcinowski/Netflix Are you looking forward to getting the gang back together again for a second season? We’ll see what the story is. I don’t know what they’re gonna do with Coach Jay Brown. I would love to come back if they want me back. I’d love to see what happens with that story. I think at the end of the day, seeing these two people happy, and if that’s together, if it’s not together, if it’s through one of the greatest platonic friendships we’ve ever seen before, that could be cool too.   I also have to ask about Insecure. Did you take anything from the experience of being on such a popular show that’s helped you with your career today? When I think of Insecure I think it’s so many things. … But I will say, going to work every day and realizing that we’re all in it for one goal, and we’re not each other’s enemy, we’re actually here to do this thing together and we’re a team and we want to make something really good and something that we’re proud of and something that will stand the test of time, I feel like that’s the thing that I take away the most. I’ve been fortunate to love a lot of people who I’ve gotten to work with. And that’s from The Game to Insecure to Top Gun, to whatever other shows I’ve done.   Those experiences can sometimes make or break the job. I will say one of the great things that I didn’t necessarily understand at the time while Insecure was happening, but I did learn from Tom Cruise on Top Gun and having this conversation with him, we are in service of the audience. If we’re not entertaining them, if we’re not being truthful to these stories and to these journeys and we’re winging it and we’re not really locked in with each other, we just made people waste their money and their time. And I think that’s something that I didn’t really understand on Insecure because it was happening so fast and the audience grew so quickly. We knew we were giving people stuff that they were eating up, but that show was never like, “Let’s write for the audience.” And I don’t think the show should ever be that, but I think that show is staying true to itself, and everyone kind of getting in line with [Issa Rae’s] vision is what made that show what it was and made that show appeal to an audience in the way it did.  Jay Ellis and Issa Rae in ‘Insecure.’ Merie W. Wallace/HBO Do you have a dream project or role that you have yet to do?  I would love to play Teddy Pendergrass or Little Richard or maybe even Marvin Gaye, like I would love to do a big music biopic of one of our great R&B crooners. I ain’t a singer, but I sing, you know what I mean? I love so many things that I don’t know that I could just pick one thing, but I love tiny little small movies that are just about two people in space and who they are and and finding themselves, and I also love a big action film where I can go and use a completely different muscle and push myself. I’ll say one thing I’m super excited about, I’m doing a play this summer in New York called Duke & Roya that’s gonna be at the Lucille Lortel, which is a super prestigious theater in the West Village. And to be able to go into that theater and put up a show is something that I’m super proud of.  What does your perfect day off look like once you get one? A morning workout, a movie in the middle of the day, tennis, cooking dinner. And then obviously in between that, either dropping my kid off at school or picking my kid up or hanging out, going to the park or something like that in some of those gaps, but that’s a very happy day, very chill, humbling day (Laughs). What’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve been able to overcome to help get you to where you are today? I think [overcoming oneself] is like such a big challenge because you wanna do it and then you’re not sure if you can do it, and then the odds don’t seem in your favor, and then somebody else gets it and you kind of hang your head a little bit, but you got to get back up and fight again ‘cause you can’t stop thinking about it and then you get it. There’s this thing of like resilience and constantly just getting back up and fighting that I think is really tough, and you have to find a way to mentally kind of wrap your head around that. I think that’s tough. I think not getting discouraged when it seems like things aren’t going your way because you’re just one no away from a yes. Like your yes is coming.  Is there a moment throughout your career that you’re most proud of? Oh, what? How am I supposed to answer that? I actually truly don’t know. I’ve got to do some really cool things that I take with me. I’ll say one of the things that jumps out is FaceTiming my dad and Tom Cruise taking the phone and talking to my dad on FaceTime while we were shooting Top Gun, that was pretty crazy. My dad was like, “Wait, Tom. What’s happening?” He was so shocked. … But you love every single one of these projects in a completely different way and over time, you learn to love them for them. It’s hard to compare them because they’re all so different and you learn so much about your craft or yourself or a character or a person, like you learn so much with each one.  If you had to describe what makes Jay Ellis, Jay Ellis, what would you say? I would say passion. I’m wildly passionate about what I do and why I do it. I would say fun. I believe I should be having so much fun, even in the most dramatic scenes, I should be having so much fun and be in it and locked in with whoever I’m working with and have studied a character inside out and created something that I’m so proud of that it makes an audience want to go see. And then I would say the last thing is food because I love it. 

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