The Real-Life Diet of Jay Ellis, Who Drinks a ‘Disgusting’ Smoothie Every Morning

The Jay Ellis you see today—who broke out by playing nice-guy Lawrence in Insecure, and popped up in Top Gun: Maverick and Mrs. America—is famously handsome. Often playing the confident leading man or the strapping romantic interest, Ellis has been hearing for years how his appearance fits a certain male Hollywood archetype. But he wasn’t always like that. In fact, growing up Ellis had enough social turmoil that he kept an imaginary friend close by his side.

He’s now comfortable enough talking about that awkward upbringing. In his new book, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? Ellis recounts his childhood as an Air Force brat—during which, amid moves from Sacramento to Austin, Tulsa to Cleveland, and several other stops in between—he could always count on his imaginary bestie, Mikey.

Today, at 43-years-old, Ellis’ life is mostly based in reality. Instead of hanging with a make-believe companion, he’s raising two very real children, constantly trying to find time within his own busy schedule to feed, clothe, and get them to school on time. He also just made the transition from screen to stage, appearing in the off-Broadway production Duke and Roya. Fresh off his first taste of the theater life, Ellis gave us the full rundown on the transition from loner kid on the playground to the apple of many HBO viewers’ eyes. It involves a lot of time on the treadmill and doing guided meditation, as well as taking MCT oil and CoQ10.

GQ: You just had a little run doing theater, is that right?

Jay Ellis: Yeah, man, I just did my first show ever. The last time I did a play was in fifth grade. So it’s been a long, long, long time. When I was in college though, I played college basketball. I used my electives to take classes around the theater program. I took a movement class, a voice class, and a stage management class. I was jealous of all the theater kids. But with basketball, especially at that level, it’s a full-time job. You can’t commit the time to do a production. That’s the last time I really had any theater experience at all, to be honest.

The idea of the basketball player being jealous of the theater kids is funny. I think it’s usually the other way around.

I joke all the time, like back then it wasn’t cool for basketball players to be actors. I was totally a coward. I was too afraid to be in the showers with my teammates and be like, “Hey, you guys want to come see me in Pippin?” It’s just everybody snapping their necks and looking at me like, “What?” But it was something that I was wildly passionate about then. Part of it was it didn’t fit in my schedule, and part of it was I didn’t know another way to find my way in. Once I started working in film and television, I promised myself that at some point I would come to New York and do theater. It’s something that I wanted to be a part of my journey and my career. All these years later, I got the chance to come do it.

I was going to ask how the preparation changes, because obviously theater is live, right? It’s almost like you have a game. How does your routine differ knowing you have a show rather than shooting something for screen?

Yeah, it’s interesting. From an endurance standpoint, I think it’s similar in a lot of ways. Obviously, you’re going two hours straight, so there’s no stopping. We have a 15-minute intermission, but the days are still long because you still have life before the show and after the show!

Endurance was something that I really thought about. I play a rapper in the play and I perform four original songs. There is full choreo—not dancing—but I’m moving around, I’m jumping on stage, I’m jumping off stage, I’m running out from one side of the stage and into the crowd at another point. So [I’m] really thinking about how I keep my breath, how I keep my own endurance for those two hours.

As far as preparation, I’m a creature of habit, so I start my days the same. The hours may vary depending on the job, but I always start my day the exact same. If I can get that couple of hours, I feel like I win the day. That really sets the pace for me.

That’s the thing that always gets disrupted when I travel. That first hour of the day is so weird in a hotel room.

Yeah, it’s hard, man. There’s certain things that I can do. I wake up in the morning—if I’m in my routine at home—the first thing I do is get on a treadmill for 30-45 minutes. Then I sit in an infrared sauna for another half-hour. I’m usually meditating while I’m doing that. I’m writing out my things to do for the day and some things that I want to accomplish. That starts at about 6:30 in the morning.