Jovan Adepo has been having a busy year. He’s hopped around the world filming for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” and now he’s back in Europe working on the second season of Netflix’s “3 Body Problem” — all as his performance as Major Leroy Hanlon in “It: Welcome to Derry” rolls out on HBO. The actor has always had a restless talent, though. He made his big screen debut in 2016’s “Fences” opposite Denzel Washington (who also directed), and he’s since appeared in Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!,” Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” and on television in “Jack Ryan,” “Watchmen” and “When They See Us.” Adepo previous dipped his toe into the Stephen King universe playing Larry Underwood in the 2020 Paramount+ adaptation of “The Stand,” but he’s now becoming a prominent fixture within it as Leroy Hanlon in “Welcome to Derry.” (Season 1 concludes on Dec. 14.)
The Hanlon family plays an important role in King’s “It” novel and its adaptations: Mike Hanlon is one of the main characters in the book. He is depicted as a child in Andy Muschietti’s 2017 film adaptation (played by Chosen Jacobs), and as an adult (Isaiah Mustafa) in its 2019 sequel. Because “Welcome to Derry” is a prequel to those films, Leroy Hanlon is Mike’s grandfather: one of the few Black men living in the titular Maine town circa 1962. He arrives from Louisiana with his wife, Charlotte (Taylour Paige) his son, Will (Blake Cameron James) and a combat wound on his amygdala that prevents him from feeling fear.
©HBO/Courtesy Everett Collection
Given the role that fear plays in Derry, Hanlon becomes an integral player in the military’s quest to infiltrate and extract the town’s dark curse. Despite his condition, though, Hanlon still showcases the gamut of emotions throughout the series, showcasing Adepo’s range while still remaining a steady, assertive presence.
Ahead of the finale, Variety caught up with the actor to talk about his part on the show, his relationships with his co-stars and his globetrotting year of performances.
Tell us how you landed the role of Leroy on ” Welcome to Derry.”
I met Andy maybe five or six years ago. We had spent some time together in Vancouver, but we hadn’t worked together before. It wasn’t until the premiere of “Babylon” in L.A. that Andy came up to me after the film. It was obviously good to see a friend, but then my agent was like, “Hey Andy, I know that you’re working on something, and I think Jovan will be right for it.” Apparently they had already been in communication, so he knew what she was talking about. After that, it all happened relatively quickly. We had a couple conversations, and I did one tape with Andy. He just wanted to see if I could do a particular scene that dealt with me and my son. After that, he was just like, “You got the part.” If only all auditions were like that.
Were you a fan of Andy Muschietti’s two “It” films? Had you read the book by Stephen King?
I had not read the book. I watched the original miniseries starring Tim Curry, and then I watched both films. I was a fan of Andy’s before I met him in Vancouver — at least the first movie had come out, so I was already a fan of him as a filmmaker, and the chance to do the prequel version of this character was really exciting.
The Hanlon family is really present in the novel, and an older version of Leroy is briefly introduced in Andy’s first film, played by actor Stephen Williams. Did you study any of this source material to better understand the family and character?
After I was cast, I read the book and tried to take as much as I could from it. But Andy was really a great tool — he is so well versed in the entire “It” universe, and the Stephen King universe. If I had any questions or any ideas about Leroy and the Hanlon family, he was the best resource to use. He was really just instrumental in me playing Leroy in a way that honored the the Hanlon legacy in the franchise.
Courtesy of Brooke Palmer/HBO
Was Leroy then mostly an invention of of Andy’s, based on the details from the book?
I think it was a combination of people, Andy and [executive producer] Barbara [Muschietti], of course; Jason [Fuchs] and Bradley [Caleb Kane], the two showrunners; and then also [writer] Cord Jefferson. Cord was a big part of the creation of Leroy, which I was excited about because I worked with Cord on “Watchmen,” so getting a chance to play a character that he had hands in again was very exciting.
Leroy is definitely an interesting character, having this amygdala damage that prevents him from feeling fear. How do you approach playing a character who doesn’t experience fear without making him feel like a robot?
It was a question that I had for Andy and Barbara when we first started: “Is he actually immune to fear?” I like to consider that he has just a higher tolerance for it. My concern was finding a way to prevent Leroy from being a boring character. Because if you can’t feel fear in a horror project, what are we doing? Andy and Barbara put my concerns to rest really early, by saying that if he doesn’t feel fear, he feels everything else extra. He still feels insecurity, still feels anxiety. He feels anger, passion, happiness, all of that. He gets opportunities to express pretty much every other emotion on the spectrum.
And I never felt that he was completely absent of fear, either. I just think that there is something really particular that would trigger it. What scares him is feeling like his family’s in danger, especially if it’s from his doing, or he thinks it’s his fault. The traditional jump scare may not be as as crippling for him as it is to other characters in the show, but I think when it comes down to his son and his wife being in a predicament that he can’t control or he can’t immediately fix, that’s what he’s afraid of.
And that’s what makes the character so rich. He’s not just a soldier, but a husband and a father as well. Tell us about building that on-screen family dynamic with Taylour and Blake.
It was fun. I met with Taylour first, because as far as I know, we were the first two people cast in the show. We met up, had coffee, and we just sat at the coffee shop. It felt like hours, just trying to figure out what the dynamic was going to be. Obviously, Charlotte and Hanlon are two drastically different characters, but we wanted to find the through line. They very much love each other, but they bump heads on how they see the world. As far as Leroy being in the armed forces, I was lucky enough that my father was in the Air Force. He was an airman from Tennessee, much like Leroy. So I really had a great resource in what it felt like to be a young man raising a family, but also trying to pursue a career in the military. I talked about that with Taylor and we kind of built up a relationship together in our journals, about how Charlotte and Leroy came from Louisiana, are going from base to base, and are doing our best to raise a family. When Blake came into the picture, I remember Andy sent me his audition tape. He was like, “This is the kid that’s going to be your son.” And I was like, “Oh, this kid is fucking amazing.” By the time we had met and he came to do the scenes, it was sort of seamless. Blake, for his age, takes the job incredibly seriously. All the kids in this show take the work very seriously, but I’m partial to Blake because I spent the most time with him. He was eager to learn, very respectful, very driven and ambitious. He’s not afraid to make mistakes. He’s not afraid to try new things. So bringing that kind of variable into the equation of what me and Taylour had already talked about, it just really came together in a really cool way.
Leroy also has a unique dynamic with Chris Chalk’s character, Dick Hallorann. What was it like building that dynamic as two Black soldiers, not just dealing with their unique psyches, but with navigating 1960s America?
Chris is a good buddy. I’ve worked with him before, so this wasn’t like an introduction to Chris Chalk at all. Building the relationship between between Dick and Leroy was really interesting, because they’re coming from different sides of the planet. For Leroy to be ranked officer as a Black man in the early ’60s, he had to have been an exceptional person, an exceptional airman or soldier, because if for any reason they were going to promote somebody, they 100% would have given that job to a white officer. But if they gave it to Leroy, you’d have to assume that he’s just an exceptional guy, and he’s still pretty young. Chris is older than me, but when Dick Hallorann comes into the picture, Dick is still a private. So there’s a dynamic that we naturally had, where I was coming in as a guy who’s earned his stripes and commands respect from everyone. Then Dick comes along, and there’s a lack of respect. I think Leroy doesn’t like him, because he doesn’t understand him and he doesn’t want to understand him. So there’s this weird friction that they have in the beginning where they’re trying to figure out who the other person is, but over the series, you see them kind of figure out that they need each other. They need each other in a way that they probably didn’t realize until both of their backs are pushed against the wall. Getting to play that with Chris was fun, and it was relatively easy, because we know each other pretty well. We know how each other works, but also we’re both very competitive and we both want to push each other to be better.
Did filming “Welcome to Derry” conflict at all with your schedule filming “The Odyssey”?
No, it was perfect. We started “Derry” just as we finished Season 1 of “3 Body Problem.” We stopped for like five or six months during the strike, and then we started again. We finished production on “Derry,” then I came home and I got “The Odyssey” and I did pretty much all the locations for it. We filmed in Morocco, we did Greece, and then we went to Italy, we went to L.A., then went to Iceland, Scotland, and then finished in L.A. again. In between those pockets of time, I maybe had like four or five days of pickup shoots for “Derry.” And after that, I went back and finished “The Odyssey.” Production ended in August, and I went straight into “3 Body Problem” Season 2. I was lucky that it all kind of just worked out. The only thing that was tricky was, when we came back from the strike, all the kids grew like three inches, and some of the kids had facial hair. Puberty doesn’t care about the actor strike, but we got it done.
Can you say who you’re playing in “The Odyssey”?
Nope. They’re still keeping everything under lock and key. I can’t even attempt to say anything because I’ll probably get in trouble, but you can’t complain when you’re working with Christopher Nolan. He’s one of the top dogs in the industry and incredibly talented. He and Andy are two filmmakers of a few that I’ve just been really honored to work with.
And how are things going on “3 Body Problem” Season 2?
It’s been good. I don’t know how much I can say, but it’s a big season of evolution for Saul. He left off in Season 1 being anointed as one of the three Wallfacers and not really wanting the job. This season gives audiences a chance to see if he does the job or not. How he goes about that, I can’t say, but it’s been going well and we’ll be here until the end of January. We’ve gotten most of the of the show in the can. Now we’re just getting the bigger set pieces done. Also the cast is brilliant. We’ve added some new faces to the show, and it’s a think it’s gonna be a fun one.
The scale of the show— fighting a global threat that won’t arrive for 400 years— is part of what makes “3 Body Problem” unique, but it’s also something that can feel hard to connect with at times. Does the conflict get any more immediate or personal in Season 2?
I think things become a bit more immediate. The scale of the situation is still the same— it’s still an impending alien invasion. What I think feels different is that the first season was creating the world for the audience. It was introducing the characters and the scientific idea and theory of the Three Body Problem. Season 1 was very science heavy.
What stood out to me when I read the scripts this season was that, now that we know the context, it feels way more personal. We see more of the the personal lives of the characters from Season 1. All the decisions that they make directly affect the other characters in much more aggressive ways this season. I think that the fans will really enjoy that, because they’ll get a chance to really connect with the circumstances of the story. It’ll be different, but in a good way.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
