Who Will Make the Cut for VF’s Hollywood Issue?
I'm like Howie Ratner the way I'm placing bets...
More from Hung Up this week: I was a guest on Lauren Sherman’s Puck podcast “Fashion People.”
The scuttlebutt for the last few months has been that Vanity Fair’s big Hollywood Issue, the first under the new global editorial director Mark Guiducci, will be a collection of Hollywood’s it-men. (Lauren Sherman first had this scoop months ago.1) I don’t know anything more than that, but I hear it’s dropping soon. It might be fun to make some predictions. Who do you think will be featured?
I’m not opposed to an all-male cover on principle. It wasn’t so long ago that Hollywood couldn’t find a leading man under 30 who could open a movie without wearing a cape and who wasn’t Shia LaBeouf. Ten years ago, Kyle Buchanan highlighted the industry’s shortage of young leading men. “Over the last decade, Hollywood has failed to grow a new crop of young leading men like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ryan Gosling, all of whom were Oscar-nominated for 25-and-under roles that helped establish them as the standard-bearers of their generation,” Kyle wrote for Vulture. “While it’s exciting to see how many talented young actresses we now have, it’s starting to feel like we’re in the middle of a pretty severe young-actor drought that could have unusual implications for the industry.”
It was a real masculinity crisis, not like the current generation of men who no longer have Kanye telling them what to do (or … for better or for worse … still telling them what to do…). A new crop of actresses, like Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone, were cast opposite men over a decade older than them. The young American male actors we did have could never get out of a YA bubble and find their footing with four-quadrant appeal. The only exceptions were Channing Tatum and the Chrises.
How much, if at all, will the new Hollywood issue reference the 2003 “It’s Reigning Men” cover? On the front: Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Jack Nicholson, and Brad Pitt. Inside flaps: Edward Norton, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Don Cheadle, Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Ewan McGregor, and Matt Damon. (I have to assume Leo, Denzel, and George Clooney were either busy or passed — how does Dennis Quaid get a call otherwise?) I like this cover mostly because Jack Nicholson, leaning forward in sunglasses and smoking a cigar, is so quintessentially Hollywood. The entire cover could be that, and I’d love it still.
I expect this year’s Hollywood Issue will drop soon-ish.2 Who do you think makes the cut? Usually, the cover features a dozen. Austin Butler, Jacob Elordi, Josh O’Connor3, Michael B. Jordan4, and Paul Mescal all feel standard, no? They’re all promoting movies with genuine awards buzz. A$AP Rocky was excellent in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Highest 2 Lowest, plus he looks so good in a suit. Ditto Andrew Scott — I’m mixed on Blue Moon, but he makes a lot of so little screen time. It’s a perfect supporting performance.5 I could also see Andrew Garfield, too. He’s such a charmer, even if After The Hunt didn’t perform. On the bubble might be Glen Powell, who was on the last cover and only has Running Man. Seth Rogen already got a GQ Men of the Year cover, but he seems quite mayor-of-Hollywood now with how much love The Studio gets in every room.
The obvious choice is
