Majors’ portrayal was one full of range and vulnerability, two things Dillard said he particularly loved about his interpretation.

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“The role of Jesse is so difficult because there’s a power, there’s a restraint, there’s a vulnerability,” Dillard explained to Vanity Fair. “What I love about him is that he’s kind of like a canary in the mines of honesty. What he looks to bring to his scene is so based in emotional reality that it breathes a different kind of life into the scenes that he participates in.”

For his role, Majors also detailed how he took pilot lessons, stopping just shy of the 10 hours necessary to get his pilot’s license, though he’s still adamant about finishing despite the mental and physical ups and downs that it caused.

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“Everybody does throw up,” he explained to Vanity Fair. “When you pull Gs, you pull Gs…. And I wanted to feel that. I wanted to push it, because you’re playing Jesse Brown, and Jesse Brown’s a bad motherfucker. He’s a maverick. He’s a trailblazer. That’s who he is and we have to take it there.”

The film also stars Glen Powell, Joe Jonas, Christina Jackson and Thomas Sadoski. Devotion hits theaters in limited release on Oct. 14 and wide release on Oct. 28, 2022.