One of the many films to world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival was directorJ.D. Dillard’s (Sleight, Sweetheart)Devotion. Set during the Korean War,Devotionis based on the book “Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice” byAdam Makos, and chronicles the true story of the US Navy’s first Black aviatorJesse Brown(Jonathan Majors) and his wingmanTom Hudner(Glenn Powell). Coming from completely different backgrounds, the two forged a lasting bond and showcases what Brown had to deal while fighting for his country.Devotionalso starsChristina Jackson,Joe Jonas, andThomas Sadoski.
TheDevotionscreenplay was written byJake CraneandJonathan A. H. Stewartand executive produced by Dillard and Powell.Molly Smith,Rachel Smith,Thad Luckinbill, andTrent Luckinbillserve as producers.
Shortly before the film played at TIFF, Glen Powell, Jonathan Majors, Joe Jonas, Christina Jackson, Thomas Sadoski, and J.D. Dillard stopped by the Collider Supper Suite and Media Studio at Marbl to talk about the film. During the fun interview, they each revealed why they wanted to be part of this film, how Powell was instrumental in making the film happen, Majors and Powell’s relationship in the film, what they were each nervous about filming before the shoot began, and more.
Watch what they had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below.
COLLIDER: I have so many questions for everyone, but I want to know what was it about this material that said I want to spend what could be years of my life making it?
JD DILLARD: It’s so rare. I feel that what you want to make ties so deeply to your own personal or family story, and I kind of put out into the world that I wanted to do something around aviation because my father was a Naval aviator when I was growing up. So this story and getting to discover it has been this really neat but odd opportunity to honor the story of these two men, but also in this weird way, also tell my dad’s story.
Glen, I have an individual question for you. When did you decide that you wanted to take every pilot role from Hollywood, so no other actors could do it?
GLEN POWELL: I’ve always considered myself a pretty-
JOE JONAS: He needs two mics for that.
POWELL: Yeah. Yeah. This is theTop Gunmic. This is theDevotionmic.
JONATHAN MAJORS: We’re good.
POWELL: I think I’ve been told I’m not allowed to take any more pilot roles for a bit. I’m being a little selfish. I think it’s time to pass on pilot roles to somebody else.
MAJORS: Does that rule out astronauts?
POWELL: I’ve already played John Glen.
JONAS: True.
POWELL: Yeah, you’re right. I got to stay out of the sky, man. I got to put my feet on the ground.
MAJORS: Grounded. Grounded.
Yeah, but being serious, what people might not know is you were very instrumental in this project getting off the ground, and it was something you’ve been working on prior toTop Gun: Maverick.
POWELL: Yeah. I think it’s been about six years since I first read the book, and it’s been a process. But I got to say that’s been the dream is to be here right now with the perfect cast, perfect director. We have the perfect producers, perfect studio, and really people believe in this movie. It’s always been the dream. It rarely works out like this, but I made a promise to the Hudner family and the Brown family that we were going to put this movie together and really honor their legacy, and I’m just so thrilled [about] how it’s come together.
This is the question for everyone. I’m sure all of you read a bunch of scripts, you hear about things, et cetera, et cetera. What was it about this particular project and this script and this story that said, “Oh, I need to be a part of this.”?
MAJORS: I’ll jump on that. The title itself,Devotion, really hit me. It’s kind of a secret word. It’s a word that we only hold onto for ourselves. Reading it, I went, okay, this script is telling a secret. How do we survive as a human species? How we survive, in particular to my character, as a black man. There is a certain amount of secret devotion. How you move through the world, how you treat other people, how you have to treat yourself in order to move through it. I think every character has to come up against that in the film, and none more than Jesse. So that’s what really grabbed me, to tell that secret and bring that to the screen.
CHRISTINA JACKSON: For me, I read it, and the story’s amazing, and it was beautiful and vivid. The character of Jesse, him choosing Daisy as his partner, and being that woman who carries on so much for him when he’s around, when he is not around, I wanted it. Even if I didn’t get it, I wanted to see it, and then actually going through the process of making it, it was amazing. Just finishing and seeing what we end up with, it was like I was supposed to be here. That was a good choice. This is the love of the story.
MAJORS: I just want to say without a doubt, because she’s so beautiful in the film. She’s so beautiful.
DILLARD: Incredible in the movie.
JACKSON: Thank you.
POWELL: Really, it is like the heartbeat of the movie that it does not work without you, and Christina just brings so much heart to this movie. It’s incredible.
Oh, 100%. I don’t want to do any spoilers, but, yeah, if the audience doesn’t buy into the two of you and your relationship, it’s game over.
JACKSON: Right.
JONAS: Absolutely. I think this film has everything. Obviously, there’s a beautiful love story. There’s heroics, there’s heartbreak. No spoilers, but there’s a lot to this film that I think people will really love. From the book to the script to on screen, and JD’s brilliance in putting this all together: it speaks volumes. So I can’t wait to see it myself.
TOM SADOSKI: No, I think that it’s really rare that you have an opportunity to be part of a project that actually honors a legacy. But it’s not just a legacy of two men who had an extraordinary life, but it is a family that had an extraordinary life, and then it’s a group of friends and colleagues who had an extraordinary life. The year or two that these people all went through together is absolutely unbelievable. You couldn’t write this script. It could only exist in reality.
And to be able to pay honor to the people who lived it every single day with each other is a rare gift. I think from the instant I picked up the script until the instant I put it down, I knew that it was something that I wanted to be a part of. You don’t get those gifts very often as an artist, and to be given it, it’s incredible.
MAJORS: Yeah. Thanks, Glen.
JACKSON: Thank you so much.
MAJORS: Thanks, JD.
DILLARD: Appreciate everybody here.
MAJORS: Appreciate it. Thanks, bro.
POWELL: By the way, I did get to talk to two Korean War Medal of Honor recipients last night, who literally said the same thing, which is in terms of the brotherhood, in terms of these guys aren’t brothers, they’re soulmates, in terms of no one knows you the way someone that you serve through hell with knows you. So there’s a connection, there’s a bond there that I really feel like this group embodies, and it’s hard to describe, but I feel like this movie is the first movie I’ve ever seen that really captures that.
I actually want to single out Thomas.I really enjoyed the way your character and I don’t know how much is fact and fiction, but I really enjoyed the commander because it was written in a way that I was not expecting. Your performance specifically, it was very much “I love these people. These are my family.” And can you talk about that aspect? Because it’s not the normal commander.
SADOSKI: Yeah. Well, Dick Cevoli wasn’t the normal commander. I played the man as I understood him to be, and we actually sat and talked quite a bit about making sure that we didn’t fall into the trap that is so common in these movies, and that we actually honored the man. His family was very clear about the fact that he was just this incredibly loving spirit. Adam Makos, who wrote the book, was very clear about the relationship that he had with the Brown family and with the Hudners, and with everybody who was in the squadron. He was just a different kind of dude.
And I think that it actually speaks to JD’s quality as a director, as a collaborator, that he believed enough in the reality of the story to let it actually happen. That he didn’t want to fall down into a trope because it was safe, because you don’t know when you take a risk breaking a trope if it’s going to work. That’s up to the audience, I guess, ultimately to decide, but we had a hell of a good time breaking it. I think that it did a lot for all of us on the day. It opened things up in a way that allowed us to play and have a good time in ways that I don’t think you would normally get to see in this sort of film.
DILLARD: Well, it’s the funny thing. Everybody has to be in the same movie, and starting with the richness and depth that we kind of center on Jesse. If the rest of the cast, if the rest of the characters in that film are not operating from a similar space or at least operating with similar authenticity, I feel like that’s where the movie starts to fall apart. So it was really this start in the center, build out, have these conversations with everyone, ensure that we are bringing as authentic and honest a representation of these people to the screen. Then I think that’s what then creates this cohesion among the movie, and hopefully this emotional honesty.
This is a question for all of you. I would imagine on every shoot, you’re looking at the schedule and what you have to accomplish each day, there must be one day on the shoot that you have circled, because, whether or not it’s going to be a technically challenging day, an emotional performance, something where maybe you have to go deep in yourself to deliver. For each of you, what was the day on the schedule that you’re either really nervous about or just really excited about?
JONAS: I think there’s always moments when you show up and realize, at least on this set, that you’re going to lose somebody. And, no spoilers, I don’t need to name names, but there’s emotion that we all have to go through. Especially these guys that spend days on these decks when wars are happening and lives are lost every single day. You don’t know if somebody’s going to land that plane and make it back. So to get into that emotion, it’s never easy, and it was an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least.
JACKSON: For me, there are two. I won’t say one, but it’s the day in the kitchen where Jesse tells Daisy that he’s leaving, and that conversation is like we talked about it. It’s like this is what we worked towards, and she’s like, “No, I get it, but I don’t want you to go.” Just trying to find those notes and that emotionality, and knowing that, yes, this is what he does, and it means the world to him, and he’s following his purpose. And me, as the actress, getting into that space where I am fully on board with it, but being true to the emotionality that she is not. I remember I was like, “I am vulnerable right now.” So that was one for me. I won’t say the other one.
SADOSKI: It’s beautiful to watch.
SADOSKI: It takes an incredible amount of courage to do that on film, and you did it, and it is beautiful to watch.
SADOSKI: Yeah, absolutely.
DILLARD: Maybe in a movie that has in-camera aviation and a lot of logistic complexity, I would say.
SADOSKI: Every day was circled for you, bud.
DILLARD: Every day. Yeah, only all 57 days of the schedule. No, but, honestly, I think it really boils down to, and I still remember the scene numbers: 125 and 127. It is in the officer’s quarters when the two of you are expanding what the notion of allyship means. I don’t care how many squibs we have going off, how many explosions, or how many planes from 1950 we’re trying to put in this sky, the hardest part is telling an honest story. And just everybody, but in those two scenes that these two gentlemen behind me, I couldn’t have gotten through those scenes without their prowess, but I think going into the schedule and even now being done with the movie, the hardest thing is just to tell that story honestly. I almost cried. Geez.
POWELL: Oh no. By the way, JD is the most emotional director I’ve ever met in my whole life. You literally have over the monitor, “What do you want them to feel?” Which is a really rare and special quality. I will say I think there’s those scenes in the movie that people know are foundational scenes, but I think what makes this movie really special is that it’s an interesting sum of its parts, and some of these scenes, they come across as small, but they do so much of the heavy lifting in terms of character for the entire cast.
I don’t know if you feel like this, but it’s like some of the crew comes up, they’re like, “Hey, big day coming up. I hope you’re ready. Big day.” I’m like, hey, we cannot do that.
JACKSON: I know.
POWELL: I know.
JACKSON: I got it.
POWELL: But then there’s these scenes that, as we’re diving into story and character, the crew may not perceive this as to be a big scene, but we know it does so much of the heavy lifting of what makes this movie work. And those are the scenes that keep you up at night for me, personally.
MAJORS: If we have time. If we have time, I’ll throw one in.
I definitely want to hear it.
MAJORS: I think for one, this is our first interview as a company, and this is just beautiful. So thank you for moderating, and being so warm, and allowing us to. It’s big for us, I guess. But to conclude, the scene in particular for me wasn’t necessarily a big scene, because it is just me and me. Jesse and Jesse. But it was an expensive scene because there’s moments in films where you see the mettle of the human being. We talked about the secret earlier. That secret is completely exposed in that moment, and it’s not pretty, and it’s quite ancestral what he’s going through. Oh, don’t do it, Jay. You heard it. You heard it. Yeah, it’s quite ancestral, what he’s going through. What he has to do to be a part of the brotherhood that he loves so much, to go back to his beautiful wife and child. That quiet ritual, it costs something. Shooting that, it was a big day because I was thinking about Glen, Joe, Tom, Christina, JD, my work, and having to conjure all of that for that one moment.
I should mention to the audience because they haven’t seen it, there is a very powerful moment with you in front of a mirror. I think that’s what you’re saying.
MAJORS: That’s what I’m discussing. Yeah. Yeah.
I just want to let people know that when you see the movie, you will understand the scene you’re talking about. I was watching it mesmerized because I was just buying into your raw emotion on screen. But, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.
MAJORS: Well, and also, to conclude, that is why. Because people are going to watch that, and though we may have different walks of life, you’ve been there. You told us earlier, hope you don’t mind, how you started this by yourself so long ago, and now it’s one of the biggest… You had to have a conversation like that with yourself. Every one of us to get in this room, to get through the day, have those conversations. So I would say that was a big scene.
Just to say, yeah, that was day two.
MAJORS: Yeah.
And then I’m like, “Oh, so this is Jonathan Majors. Got it.”
POWELL: I showed up early that day. I remember I wasn’t even supposed to come till later, and I just remember watching that scene and being like, oh my gosh, this guy’s coming to play. I was thrilled. I felt so at peace about this movie after watching that scene because this guy puts everything he has into every moment of this movie.
Special thanks to our TIFF 2022 partners A-list Communications, Belvedere Vodka, Marbl Toronto, COVERGIRL Canada, Tres Amici Wines, Toronto Star, and Blue Moon Belgian White beer.
