Did you just finish binge-watching I’m A Virgo? If so, you might have some questions about Jharrel Jerome’s height. The actor, who previously starred in Moonlight and When They See Us (and had a surprise role in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), steps into Boots Riley’s absurdist comedy series as Cootie, a 13-foot-tall teenager from California. But is Jerome really 13 feet tall – and even more important, what does height signify in the series?

Told over seven episodes, the show follows Cootie as he befriends a group of political activists after growing up in a sheltered environment. The towering teen was shielded from the world and exposed to his parent’s many conspiracy theories, leaving him more wide-eyed and naive than others. Eventually, he meets his lifelong idol, the vigilante superhero The Hero, and finds that he might not be as trusting as he seems. 

The show is a hodge-podge of social justice and fantastical world-building as it follows Cootie while he navigates a world filled with miniature people and flying superheroes under the guidance of his new friends. 

That said, anybody who has followed Jerome through the early days of his career knows that he isn’t quite as tall as the character he plays. On the contrary, he’s a short king — but that doesn’t mean he can’t relate to Cootie’s jaw-dropping height. Continue reading for everything you need to know about Jerome’s height and how he relates to his character. 

No, Jharrel Jerome isn’t 13 feet tall. According to IMDb, he’s actually five foot and eight inches tall, which is approximately 1.73 meters in height. Cootie, on the other hand, stands at 13 feet tall, which is 3.96 meters in height. This means that there’s a difference of about seven feet and three inches (roughly 2.23 meters) between the two. 

In other words, Cootie is over twice the height of Jerome in real life and the production team for I’m A Virgo had to use some nifty tricks to make Jerome appear as tall as the character he’s playing, especially while standing at a similar height to his fellow colleagues.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Jerome opened up about how the series was made, saying,  “I can imagine that’s the biggest question that people are going to ask for sure, because I’m not even 6 feet tall. So they definitely pulled some magic. Boots came up with a really creative idea to shoot forced perspective.”

Jerome shared that the show’s team “avoided the CGI and the special effects” and instead built miniature sets and used a 13-foot-tall silicon doll that resembled him. “They built two huge, massive dolls that were pretty much moving around on set for all of the over-the-shoulder shots and all of the moments where the other actors were talking to me on their coverage,”  he said. “And then for me, they built six-inch dolls of all the other actors, so I would act with them. So at no point during shooting were any of the actors actually looking at each other. We were all just pulling tricks the whole time.”

When it came to altering the set locations, they used miniature sets and rooms and would lower the ceilings. “It was really all me playing on a small size set, so I felt gigantic,” Jerome added. 

Despite the vast height differences between the two, Jerome had no issues relating to Cootie and his towering build, saying it emulated the life he lives as a Black Man. “I think as a Black man, when you walk around the street, you kind of already feel like Cootie: You feel a little too big, or you feel a little too intimidating, even though you’re pure-hearted,” Jerome told Time Magazine. 

He continued, “Maybe you’re just going to the grocery store to grab something for your grandmother, but an officer of the law or somebody of upper class might look at you like you’re 13 feet tall and you’re this monster.”

In another portion of the interview, Jerome praised Riley, who created, directed and produced the series, saying, “Boots was able to write such a lovable, nuanced character that can really mirror the lives of a lot of Black people in America today, in just being different, between being an outcast, between being viewed as somebody different than who you really are.”

Just like Cootie’s height, it’s clear that the story of I’m A Virgo is more than what meets the eye.