If there is one movie this year that doesn’t need an introduction, it is The Harder They Fall. Jaw-dropping visuals, a great plot, and spectacular acting, The Harder They Fall has it all. With the likes of Regina King in the movie, the bar was quite high for the film. Not only did The Harder They Fall reach the standard but each member of the all-black cast led by Jonathan Majors and Idris Elba continues to impress the fans evermore.

Nat Love, the man, the myth, the legend

Jonathan Majors plays the role of Nat Love in this allegory about the vicious cycles of violence and revenge. The Nat Love we see in The Harder They Fall is an outlawed fugitive who runs a gang of cowboys. The entire film is about his experience settling things with Elba’s Rufus Black. While the film isn’t entirely historical, it isn’t entirely fictional, either. This gave the actors the right amount of inspiration and space to bring creativity to the table.

The Nat Love that occupied the present city and former county of Deadwood wasn’t quite an outlaw. The real Nat Love was a cowboy born into a family of slaves. Despite the slavery-era social and legal statutes wherein black literacy was illegal, Love learned how to read and write. Soon after slavery ended, Love’s father died and he had to take up familial responsibilities to make ends meet at a very young age. While working a number of odd jobs Love discovered the fact that he had quite the talent for breaking horses.

With a passion for horses and gunslinging, Love won two raffles and used the prize money to move out west at the tender age of 16. Despite his many raffles, rodeos, and other adventures, some that earned him the name of “Deadwood Dick“, Love had a relatively peaceful and quiet old age.

Nat Love left the cowboy life for his wife, Alice. He settled down and began working as a normal average citizen. With certainly many stories to tell, Love published his autobiography Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country and ‘Deadwood Dick,’ by Himself.

Jonathan Majors as Nat Love, a sight truly to behold

As is evident from his career, Nat Love was bewitched, mind, body, and soul, by his gun and horse. The passion he had for the two got him very far in his cowboy career and Jonathan Majors made sure he brought this to life in The Harder They Fall. While no one can point to what it was that Majors got so right, the Netflix film continues to impress viewers. Majors certainly did “blow that b*itch, Bill”.

In the interview, Majors talks about how he streamlined the things the inspiration he drew directly from Love and practicality on the set to make sure viewers got the best of the experience. The actor talks about things Nat Love did and traits he possessed that Majors tried inspiriting in the movie while other “practical elements” he used to make the character ever more enthralling. The combination of the two certainly worked very well.