He Grew Up on a Military Base

As a kid, Jonathan grew up on with his two siblings on the Vandenberg military base near Lompoc, CA, as his father was in the Air Force [3]. However, his mother moved him and his siblings to Dallas after his father left the family. "Our father, who loved us dearly, just kind of disappeared one day . . . and he resurfaced 17 years later," Jonathan explained to The Hollywood Reporter in November 2019.

Following the death of George Floyd and the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, Jonathan was able to reconnect with his father [4]. "I hadn't spoken to him in about two years, but I spoke to him this morning briefly. He said he saw the same protests in the '60s, then in the '90s with Rodney King, and now again," Jonathan told People in June 2020, noting that the protest movement brought them closer together.

His Mom Is a Pastor

In Dallas, Jonathan's mother pursued a master's degree in divinity, eventually becoming a pastor. Thanks to his mom, spirituality is a big part of Jonathan's life [5], and though he's never considered becoming a pastor himself, the lessons his mom taught him have stuck with him. "That type of service and work ethic and scholarship is something I adopted and made my own," Jonathan told Elle in August 2020, referring to his mom's hard work. "I'm not a pastor. I'm not a man of the cloth, but I have my own calling."

He Discovered His Love for Acting at 14

After getting into a fight at school in Dallas at 14, Jonathan was enrolled "in an alternative education program," and it is there that he first discovered his love of performing [6]. "We were reading Agatha Christie and I just got into it," he recalled to The Last Magazine in June 2019. "I grew up reading the Bible all the time and I would compare the King James version and other versions and be like, 'Oh, I like this version better.' I just loved reading and I have an active imagination and liked acting out the scene."

He Landed His First Role While Attending the Yale School of Drama

Following high school, Jonathan attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA), where he got his Bachelor of Fine Arts. After graduating in 2012, he enrolled at the Yale School of Drama, and during his final semester, he landed his first major role [7]: young Ken Jones on ABC's When We Rise. "My final semester at Yale, I was picked by Gus Van Sant to play one of the leads in the miniseries he and Dustin Lance Black were collaborating on," he explained to Backstage in December 2019. "I did my final semester of [school] work in a trailer in Vancouver on set with Gus Van Sant."

When He Auditioned for When We Rise, He Couldn't Afford a Hotel Room

Jonathan flew to California to audition for the role in When We Rise. Though he'd planned on staying in a hotel room, he discovered too late that he didn't have enough money in his bank account [8] to cover the cost. "I was so broke, I couldn't pay for a hotel that I thought I could pay for," he told Variety during a November 2019 interview. "I'm like, f*ck it, I'll just walk around San Francisco at night running lines. [But] my new manager called them and somehow convinces these guys to let me stay and give me a room, puts her credit card down. And so I go in [for the audition] and there's nothing but love."

He Was Handpicked by Spike Lee to Star in Da 5 Bloods

Rather than auditioning for his role in Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee sought Jonathan out to play David [9]. "No audition. Just, 'Spike wants to meet you,'" Jonathan explained to Interview Magazine in June 2020. "I'm living in Harlem at the time. I said, 'Spike Lee wants to meet me? Okay. Sure.'" After arranging a meeting with the director and seeing "some stuff he was working on," Jonathan was all but handed the role. "And then we step outside, and it's on," Jonathan added. "[Spike] says, 'This is who you're playing. Do you have a passport? Read this book.'"

He Has a 7-Year-Old Daughter

After graduating from UNCSA and before attending the Yale School of Drama, Jonathan had a daughter, who is currently seven years old. During his June 2020 interview with People, Jonathan said that his priority is giving his daughter a proper education on Black history [10]. "She has to understand that it's actually not 'Black history' — it's American history," he said. "The way it's taught now, it's honestly the Jim Crow system of separate but equal. We'll give it one month, 12 pages in the history book . . . we'll talk about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park, MLK, then we'll give you a little quiz about it. And that's it."

For Jonathan, it's also important for his daughter to celebrate her Blackness [11]. During a June 2020 interview with W, the actor recalled a conversation he had with his daughter, who was frustrated "because her hair won't fall down — her hair goes up." In response, he told her, "You have a crown. That's why your hair goes up. Your hair, your crown, came from daddy, came from his mama, came from his father, came from his sister. Sometimes that crown can get you in trouble in this world, and it's not right. And some people want to take that crown from you."