DETROIT — In his first major role on screen, Javon Anderson goes toe-to-toe with Don Cheadle.
Not bad for the Hollywood debut from the native Southwest Detroiter.
"It was a life achievement moment, to say the least," says Anderson, who plays small-time crook Lonnie in the Detroit-set "No Sudden Move."
The Steven Soderbergh-directed heist drama started streaming on HBO Max last week, but the Detroit actor got his first look at himself on screen when he saw the movie at its Detroit premiere, June 27 at Dearborn's Ford-Wyoming Drive-In theater.
"We were dialed in, and then as soon as it was over, we were shouting, clapping and laughing. We were so excited," says Anderson, who watched the movie from the inside of his 2021 Chevy Blazer alongside his fiance, Shantrese. "It was a dream come true, to be honest with you. It was an NBA Finals-type moment, like a 'wow, I'm really here' type-of-thing."
Anderson was first bit by the acting bug when he did extra work on "Conviction," the 2010 Detroit-filmed legal drama which starred Hilary Swank and was one of the first Hollywood productions to swing through town and take advantage of the state's then-lucrative tax incentive program. Anderson didn't make it on screen, but the experience was enough that he pursued a career in the acting world.
From there, Anderson — who grew up playing football in Southwest Detroit and graduated from Chadsey High School — auditioned for any jobs he could, landing work as a production assistant for the TV show "Hoarders" and nabbing small acting parts on AMC's "Low Winter Sun" and in the David Foster Wallace drama "The End of the Tour," both of which were filmed in Michigan. A missed role in 2014's "Goosebumps" led to him thinning his frame, shedding 135 pounds and giving him a fresh outlook on his career.
The tax incentives eventually left the state and movie work quickly dried up but Anderson, 32, kept plugging away, landing a handful of jobs doing commercial and voice-over work, including spots for Gardner White, Ford, Goodman Acker, Detroit Public TV, DTE and Spotify.
Then he went out for for "No Sudden Move" in February 2019. For the role of Lonnie, a kind of go-between who puts Cheadle's character, a crook named Curt Goynes, up in a Detroit flophouse, he came in prepared with a full backstory for his character, life stories and experiences Lonnie would have went through that aren't in the script — some pulled from his own life — to add to his character's depth. He read four different scenes in his audition, and his preparation paid off; a month later, he got word he was hired.
While filming — shooting was set to begin in spring of 2020 but was delayed by seven months due to the COVID-19 pandemic — the importance of having a backstory for his character beyond what is mentioned on screen was reinforced during an on-set chat with a superstar who makes a cameo in the film.
"I had a conversation with Matt Damon where he told me, even though he had a small supporting role, he was doing 20, 30 pages worth of backstory, just to give his character more life," Anderson says. "That let me know I was on the right track with my process."
For his big scene with Cheadle, Anderson says he stayed up the night before and studied the script front and back and knew both his lines and Cheadle's lines by heart. The prep work, he says, "was like practicing shooting free throws."
They shot the scene five or six times, he says; Sodberbergh worked quickly, got what he wanted and moved on.
"Shooting 11 days with Soderbergh, it was a life-opening experience," Anderson says of his time on the film. "It's given me the confidence that I'm able to work with an Oscar-nominated actor and with an Oscar-winning director and that, along with the accumulation of all the work I had done prior, has exponentially increased my confidence of knowing I'm on the right track. It's a beautiful feeling."
That feeling has has lead to Anderson pursuing his acting dream full-time, and he's left his day job at Magna Seating.
Ideally, Anderson would like to see the movie lead to more opportunities for acting jobs in his hometown.
"I do hope that this project brings back work to Detroit for other Detroiters, and other directors can see they can come to Detroit with any crew or cast and make a fantastic film," he says.
Moving to Los Angeles is a possibility; Anderson says he talked with Cheadle about taking him on in a mentor role. But for now, he's staying put, and not making any sudden moves.
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'NO SUDDEN MOVE'
Rated: R (for language throughout, some violence and sexual references)
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Playing: Now streaming on HBO Max
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