Stephan James plays Jesse Owens in new film “Race” out today.
Sitting down with Stephan James for the first time in an instant I realized his star power and why he was recently named Rising Star at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. A sports fanatic with natural talents in basketball, football, soccer, kickboxing, and track and field Stephon is also a young MC who enjoys performing his own rap music. James has had the privilege to play several real-life figures in African-American history such as Terrance Kelly, Cummings Shakspear and most recently John Lewis in Ava DuVernay’s Selma. James gushed over preparing for the role of Jesse Owens in our exclusive sit-down conducted by Chasity Saunders!
Chasity: I got a chance to see the film, it’s absolutely incredible.
Stephon: Thank you.
Chasity: What some people may not know about you is that you’ve had the opportunity to play several African American figures. So what was it about the Jesse Owens story that made you say you know what, I really want to take on this person’s life and I really want to bring this?
Stephon: I mean he’s Jesse Owen’s you know. Once the fastest man on the planet and it’s such a huge inspiration to so many people you know; not just here in America but the world over so for me obviously I jumped at the opportunity to play someone like him of course.
Chasity: I got a chance to speak to your director and he told us that he got the chance to find you in Toronto, I know that you’re Canadian, How did you train for the role of Jesse Owens, he’s one of the greatest athletes of the sport, how did you train for this role?
Stephon: It wasn’t easy, I’ll start there but I was filming at the time in Atlanta and basically every off day I had filming I would take my off days and go down to Georgia Tech and work with the track and field coaches there. So it was great for me. It took place over about two months and then while we filmed obviously the training continued but it started with me working on conditioning and weight training and then trying to run fast and then trying to run like Jesse; so there were so many different layers to the whole process but I took no shortcuts because I wanted to make sure that everything was accurate from his start, to his stance, to his facial expressions while he ran.
Chasity: I know that this film was in production for 3 years so it was happening long before anything that;s going on right now, but you know with the potential of a boycott with the Oscars and you having to actually portray Jesse who had to deal with the boycott that almost happened to the 1936 Olympics, where does that put you as an actor and a young African American talent in Hollywood?
Stephan: Well honestly I think it’s just an important discussion of race, so I’m glad the people are talking about it, but for us I feel like we made this film to show people why it doesn’t matter what you look like or where you’re from or whatever your background is or your back story may be you’re able to accomplish great great things so I feel like that’s what they can get from Jesse and that’s what they can get from this film.
Chasity: We know that you’re a man of many many talents we also hear that you’re a rapper?
Stephon: I am, part time you know, I used to do a little.
Chasity: What else can we look forward to seeing from you in the future? What else do you want to work on?
Stephon: I’d like to do a bunch of things, I’d love to not only be classified as a specific type of actor you know, I’d love to do action films and maybe play a superhero some day, Sci-Fi you know I’m open to it all, I’m just excited to tell great stories.
Chasity: Well you’re definitely in shape for it, thank you so much I really enjoyed the film and congratulations.