2022-08-01 Esquire UK

After a prolonged dry spell,

get ready for a deluge of

entertainment coming your

way in the next few months.

Great news. But still, it’s a lot.

So here are our predictions

for the key TV shows,

books, exhibitions,

films, music and (weird,

slightly stressful-sounding)

immersive experiences

to look out for. Brollies up!




Illustrations by Damon Sheeley




Even in a normal year, autumn is a fruitful sea-
son for culture. Anticipating the more indoorsy,
sedentary habits that kick in as the evenings cool,
it’s a time for big books, prestige TV series and
lofty movies with statuettes in their sights. But
this year? Following more than two years of inter-
rupted filming schedules, cancelled events and
experimental Zoom plays (never again!), we are
in for something different. After the dearth and

the difficulties, prepare for a glut. Prepare, in
fact, for a cultural superbloom.
There will be an embarrassment of literary
fiction: Ian McEwan, George Saunders and
Cormac McCarthy will all have new books (in
McCarthy’s case, two!). There will be a bounty
of intriguing films from singular directors:
George Miller, Lena Dunham and Jordan Peele,
whose new horror, Nope, is out as this issue hits
the shelves. There’ll be a host of TV shows, from
Sharon Horgan’s new comedy-drama, Bad Sisters,
and *reads through fingers* Ryan Murphy’s new
Jeffrey Dahmer drama, Monster, to returning
biggies: The Crown, Gangs of London and Cobra
Kai (you know you love it). Plus, a little show
you may or may not have heard of about drag-

ons (turn to the front cover for a clue).
Most of which we won’t cover in the next few
pages, because that’s not even the half of it. We’re
not going to give you a comprehensive overview
— there are websites staffed by data inputters
with the work-life balance of a veal calf for that
— but, rather, a heads-up of some of the people
and projects we think will be of particular inter-
est. Consider it a selection of friendly tip-offs to
fall back on if the onslaught of culture coming
your way gets too much. But for now, strike hard.
Strike fast. No mercy. MIRANDA COLLINGE

100







THE

ARTIST WILL

BECOME


THE CRITIC




DYLAN, MURAKAMI
AND TARANTINO ARE
ANALYSING THEIR CRAFTS
FROM THE INSIDE


There’s a maxim that someone told me once,
which stayed with me: ask not the chicken to
speak of the soup. (The maxim stuck. The teller

of the maxim? Haven’t a clue.) The gist being,
it’s hard to talk about a thing when you’re in it.
Perhaps that’s something that artists should be
wary of — dissecting their favoured medium
might cause it to lose its magic. But try telling
that to Bob Dylan, whose new book, The
Philosophy of Modern Song, will be published on
ARE YOU READY FOR 1 November. (In fact, try telling anything to Bob

THE ‘ASTRAVERSE’? Dylan: the prospect is terrifying.)
In this collection of more than 60 essays, Dylan
Unless you’ve been reading this magazine back to front, you’ll know about House examines the work of everyone from Nina Simone
of the Dragon by now. The Game of Thrones prequel might be the most eagerly antic- to Elvis Costello and calls out some of the pitfalls

ipated, but it is by no means the only fantasy or sci-fi mega-project on the way. In that songwriters can be prey to. But don’t think
fact, such is the barrage of fantasy and sci-fi titles, this autumn’s release slate looks he’s the only one at it: Haruki Murakami will be
like the cavalry charge at the end of The Return of the King. bringing us Novelist as a Vocation on 8 November,
Deep breath: there’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; yet another Star Wars in which he promises to unpick his own creative
spin-off in Andor with Diego Luna; Warwick Davis returning for a sequel series thinking (like, what’s with all the cats?). But if
of sorcery-and-wigs epic Willow; there’s Hindi-language Brahmāstra Part One: there’s one chicken who’s surely going to have
Shiva, which will launch a brand-new cinematic universe, the “Astraverse”; the a soup-thought or two, it’s Quentin Tarantino,
third and final series of Philip Pullman adaptation His Dark Materials; Amazon’s whose new book, Cinema Speculation, about the
Lord of the Rings series; and James Cameron’s mo-cap a-go-go Avatar sequel The films of the 1970s that influenced him, arrives
Way of Water, which squelches into multiplexes a mere 13 years after the first. on 25 October. Spoons at the ready. MC
That’s a lot of universes, mythologies and storyworlds competing for your
eyeballs (and by no means is this an exhaustive list). To be fair, sticking your con-
sciousness into an escape pod and blasting off into the cosmos for a couple of
hours certainly feels like quite a tempting idea at the moment. More than that,
though, we’re being invited back into worlds we know — only Brahmāstra is try-
ing to build a story from the ground up — and, since Marvel started knitting its

universes together, there’s been a yearning for any story to never really be over,
for there to be side-quests and undiscovered nuggets to be found. (Whether it’s
comic-loving audiences or IP-flogging studios who are doing all that yearning is
another debate.)
And, even if you’re a disinterested villager at the fringes of this clash of titans,
there is, at least, a frisson of high-stakes, mega-budget gambling going on here
that’s worth tuning in for; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reportedly cost
a punchy $500m for just the first season. But could this be the acme of our
fantasy appetites? Are we about to hanker for some kitchen-sink? Will the lore
[titters into fingers] be an ass? Let’s face it — if the world continues in its cur-
rent form, we’ll take all the unicorns the studios can throw at us (ideally not
Writing the script: Quentin Tarantino’s book will look
horn-first). TOM NICHOLSON back at the 1970s films that inspired him to be a director

101





Blonde girl: Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s new film
SAS: ROGUE


HEROES

WILL SHOW

US THE

SOFTER


SIDE OF

THE ARMED

FORCES




PSYCH! COURSE NOT,
IT’S A NEW TV DRAMA
FROM STEVEN ‘PEAKY
BLINDERS’ KNIGHT



It should surprise no one that Steven Knight’s
next big project after the final series of Peaky
Blinders is a gritty drama that follows a group of
men with charisma, fierce loyalty to each other
ANA DE ARMAS and, to put it mildly, an aversion to authority.
This time, the gang is on the right side of the

WILL REALLY law at least, as Knight tells the story of the found-
ing of the Special Air Service, based on Ben

SHOW US WHAT McIntyre’s bestselling, rip-roaring book.
Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones) and Connor
Swindells (Sex Education) play, respectively, Jock
SHE CAN DO Lewes and David Stirling, the two Army offic-

ers who, while posted in Egypt in 1941, came
up with the idea for a special unit to go behind
THE FILM’S BLONDE… enemy lines and cause mayhem and confusion
(hence it being an Army unit with “air” in its
Still excited about the next big biopic trailer? Aw, how 2014. These days, the huge name). And how did it go? Well. There were
moment in a release cycle is when the first promo pic drops, and you can see how swings. There were roundabouts. But, as Knight
much the lead actor looks like the person they’re playing. Remember when that spotted, a ripping yarn at every turn. MC
image of Lily James and Sebastian Stan as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee ‘SAS: Rogue Heroes’ is out later this year on BBC One
landed? Bedlam. Ken Branagh as Boris (in the forthcoming Michael Winterbottom
Sky Atlantic mini-series This England)? Bonkers. It happened when Netflix released
Pyramid schemes: the cast of ‘SAS: Rogue Heroes’ on set
pictures of Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s upcoming
biopic Blonde, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ book of the same name. Magnificent.
As well as doing the big reveal of de Armas as Monroe — and the similarity

is eerie — Blonde is the big reveal of Ana de Armas as Ana de Armas. This is her
coming-out party. Knives Out was when your dad took notice of her, but there she
was squished between Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc on one side and
much of Hollywood on the other. Outside of that, she’s been squeezing onto the
edges of things. She turned up for the best 15 minutes of No Time to Die, shim-
mered briefly as Ryan Gosling’s AI girlfriend in Blade Runner 2049 and got cut
from Danny Boyle’s Beatles-free Beatles fantasy Yesterday. Cruellest of all, her
cardboard likeness was dumped in a bin outside Ben Affleck’s house.
Now, finally, the 34-year-old Cuban actress has got the kind of meaty gig she
deserves — in a film that looks set to be both iconic and deeply unsettling. Also,
let it be said, playing a real-life icon in a Golden-Age Hollywood story is usually
catnip come the Oscars. Blonde ambition and then some. TN

102







Hollywood Utd: unlikely lower league football
fan Ryan Reynolds and his pal Rob McElhenney



Canadian-American actor, producer, entrepre-
neur and philanthropist. (For clarity, he’s the
Deadpool Ryan, not the Drive Ryan. The Drive
Ryan owns Port Vale.*) In addition to Wrexham,
Reynolds owns a gin brand, an advertising agency,
a telecommunications company and, launching
soon, a nonprofit that aims to promote leader-
ship opportunities for people of colour in the
creative industries. (Rob McElhenney, for any-
one out there, is… no, sorry, you’ll have to
Google him. He’s Jonny Wilkes to Reynolds’
Robbie Williams, that’s the best I can do.)

Wrexham, for those comic-book-blockbuster
aficionados who don’t follow these things, is
a medieval market town in North Wales — pop-
RYAN REYNOLDS’ ulation 65,000; smaller than the capacity of Old

Trafford — known, if at all, for its handsome
WELCOME TO church, St Giles’; its splendid stately home, Erddig

Hall; and the Xplore! Science discovery centre
WREXHAM WILL (Wikipedia again). It is also home to one of the
largest industrial estates in Europe, and one can
BE ADORABLE BUT only guess at the rapt excitement with which
Blake Lively greeted this information.
What Wrexham’s not known for, by those
ALSO… ANNOYING? who know it: glamour; celebrity; unlimited


wealth, with former Blue Peter dreamboat Tim
Vincent being the exception that proves the rule.
WHAT’S BEHIND A HOLLYWOOD STAR (AND HIS
Tim aside, what drew Ryan, born and raised
FRIEND’S) DECISION TO BUY A WELSH FOOTBALL in that hotbed of soccer fandom, Vancouver (and
TEAM? AND WILL IT MAKE FOR WINNING TV? his pal, wherever he’s from), to North Wales,

and the National League?
Did Ryan Reynolds (and Rob, let me check this Ronaldo will be turning out for The Dragons. Rich Americans have been buying English
online, McElhenney) buy Wrexham AFC solely But perhaps that’s too cynical. Maybe football clubs for some time now. (Wrexham is
so they could make a “docuseries” entitled Reynolds (yes, and Rob Wotsit) just really wished the first Welsh one.) Ethically, it’s perhaps more
Welcome to Wrexham, about that time when Ryan he could spend less time in his palatial New York convenient for your club to sell out to a rapa-
Reynolds (and Rob, according to IMDb, home with his beautiful A-list wife and their chil- cious US businessman than, as with Manchester
McElhenney) bought Wrexham AFC? dren, and more time with his good buddy (Rob City and Newcastle United, to the sovereign
No disrespect to the residents of Wrexham something?) at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground, wealth funds of despotic Gulf states. And it can
— they’ve doubtless had a skinful already — but in the stinging rain, watching target-man Paul yield results on the pitch, too, as Liverpool,
it’s hard to imagine why else Ryan Reynolds (and Mullin spurn a glorious 90th-minute chance to owned by Boston’s Fenway Sports Group, can
Rob, Wikipedia confirms, McElhenney) would go one-up against Solihull Moors, and as a result testify. But fans of Manchester United, owned

have decided to purchase a club that plays in the be roundly castigated by the home fans, in the by the cuddly Glazer family of Florida, and
National League — that’s the fifth tier of English form of disobliging chants about his supposed Arsenal, owned by Stan Kroenke, based in
football — other than for shits, giggles, good- sexual peccadilloes, for not having stumped up Colorado, might not agree. Those magnificent
guy brand-building points and revenue-driving the €60m cash for Erling Haaland. (Warning clubs, once firmly rooted in their communities,
content-creation opportunities. Is there any point you, Ryan, those £2.80 non-specific-meat-prod- now seem lost, free-floating consumer brands
in doing anything anymore unless you can uct pies look pretty consoling at half time, when unmoored from their localities, stripped of their
document it for your millions of adoring follow- it’s scoreless, and your talismanic centre-half’s purpose except as debt dumps for overseas
ers? (44.3 million on Instagram in Reynolds’ just been stretchered off, but they don’t do any- investors. All that guff about football stadia as
case; 43.2 million fewer in the other dude’s.) thing for the superhero physique.) secular cathedrals, and clubs as unifying expres-
Or, better yet, sell it to a global streaming Reynolds, for those lower-division foot- sions of local pride and passion, is pretty hard
service for $$$? Doubtless all profits will go ball fans who don’t follow these things, is a to swallow when your stadium is named after
back into the club and, next season, Cristiano handsome and hugely successful 45-year-old a Middle Eastern airline, your owner lives in

103







Palm Beach, and your best player, on £350,000
a week, is eyeing a transfer to Barcelona. It’s said
that football fans wear their hearts on their
sleeves. Those Arsenal fans wearing replica shirts
have the legend “Visit Rwanda” printed on their
biceps. (Perhaps Priti Patel is on the board?) The
most prominent logo on the Wrexham AFC shirt
— how good is this? — is that of TikTok.
The most remarkable acquisition of an English
club, perhaps ever, was the recent government-
forced sale of Chelsea FC, by the effervescent
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, to a con-
sortium headed by the American businessman
Todd Boehly, part owner of the LA Dodgers and
the LA Lakers. It went for £4.25bn. Truly heart-

warming stuff, and not in any way indicative of
the moral black hole at the centre of the world’s
favourite spectator sport.
Reynolds (and bestie) bought Wrexham in
2020 for rather less than Boehly paid for his
latest sporting bauble: £2m, which wouldn’t get
you a two-bed flat in SW3. (Rob, mate, you’re
on the airbed.) At that time, Wrexham were
bottom of the National League. Last season, they
finished second — the Deadpool effect? — but
lost in the play-off semi-final to Grimsby Town,
5-4 AET. They also reached the FA Trophy final,
losing 1-0 to Bromley.

Sorry, is this stuff cute and funny? Will it
make for a heart-warming docuseries, filled with
laughter, tears, life-lessons and hilarious separated-
by-a-common-language misunderstandings?
Previews of Welcome to Wrexham were unavaila-
ble as Esquire went to press. One hopes that the THE V&A’S NEW SHOW WILL TAKE
wealthy, sophisticated North Americans don’t YOU BTS OF THE KOREAN WAVE
try to pass themselves off as unpolished, simple-
minded rubes, wide-eyed in the Old World, You know how to do “Gangnam Style” (1. Gallop enthusiastically on a small
rather than the steely, driven, profit-motivated invisible horse; 2. Call your chiropractor) but do you know what “Gangnam Style”
Ur-capitalists they really are. Likewise, one fears actually is? A new exhibition at the V&A Museum in London will reveal such
the flinty folk of North Wales being presented secrets (as will Google: Gangnam is a district south of the Han River in Seoul),
as starstruck naïfs, bowled over by the attentions but also give you a deeper understanding of the recent Korean Wave, known as
of their celebrity saviours. But we shall see. It “Hallyu”, that has become an increasingly pervasive cultural force.
may be that the Ted-Lasso-IRL premise will give Since the 1990s, the South Korean government has been investing in culture
way to something more complex and rewarding: in order to bolster its own economy and extend its influence abroad. And its soft-

a rich stew, rather than one of those radioactive power policy is paying off, as the international success of musical acts, such as Psy
half-time pies. and BTS, and films and TV shows, such as Squid Game and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite,
Anyway, no doubt, as I write this, Jason can attest (the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is also
Statham (and his mate Phil) is readying a Netflix- a named supporter of the V&A’s exhibition).
funded bid for minor-league sensations the But, as well as immersive installations and videos to celebrate K-pop, K-dramas,
Rocket City Trash Pandas, of Madison, Alabama, K-fashion and K-beauty, the show also includes some, er, K-history, explaining
and I’ll have to eat my baseball hat and admit how the legacy of Japanese occupation, the Korean War, the country’s difficult
cultural imperialism really has no borders any- path to democracy and its rapidly developing technology-driven economy have
more, and we Brits are just as guilty as they are. led to South Korea’s undeniable cultural influence today. (And to you having your
Until then, over to you, Ryan. (And you, erm, chiropractor on speed-dial.) MC
Rob?) ALEX BILMES ‘Hallyu! The Korean Wave’ is on from 24 September to 25 June 2023 at the V&A Museum,
‘Welcome to Wrexham’ is out 25 August on Disney+ London SW7. vam.ac.uk/kwave



* He doesn’t.

104






YOU’LL

FORGET


HARRY

STYLES

IS A SINGER




THE PEARL-EARRINGED
POPSTAR’S AN ACTOR NOW


Imagine for a moment you’re Harry Styles. You’ve
done two nights at Wembley Stadium. You have
one of 21st-century pop’s great wardrobes. You
persuaded Mick Fleetwood to pose with a car-

toon frog in an ad for your cosmetics line. You’re
28, and you’ve completed being famous. What
do you do? The one final frontier: the big screen.
In September’s Don’t Worry Darling, Styles
follows up his bit-part in Dunkirk by starring
alongside Florence Pugh in director Olivia
Wilde’s 1950s-set psychological thriller, in which
he plays an employee of a mysterious corpora-
tion. In October, he’s back in the 1950s as one
corner of a bisexual love triangle in My Policeman.
Styles follows some of his heroes here. Mick
Jagger, Prince, Lady Gaga, David Bowie, Elvis

and John Lennon all dabbled in film, with var-
ying results. The ones that land tend to rely less
on genuine thespy chops than timing and an
understanding of one’s strengths. But it’s the
public’s goodwill toward a pop star in their impe-
rial phase that makes a role work. If you were
Harry Styles, you’d be quietly confident. TN
IN TOUGH TIMES,

STAGE WHAT SELLS


We’re not saying there’s a prize for which of the arts was hardest hit by Covid,
but theatre’s got to be clearing space on the mantelpiece. And the effects con-
tinue to be felt: to recoup losses and maximise their bum-to-seat ratios, expect
London theatres to lean on big names and plays and take fewer chances on exper-
imental or lesser-known practitioners and productions. Obviously, that’s a shame
— trust us, we love a six-hour reading of the phone book in Old French as much

as the next guy — but given the calibre of people who’ll be on- and backstage
this autumn, it’s easy to see the silver lining.
There’ll be big directors (Ivo van Hove, taking on an adaptation of Édouard
Louis’s searing memoir Who Killed My Father at the Young Vic from 7 September),
big plays (The Crucible at the National from 14 September), big productions (the
10-Tony-winning musical The Band’s Visit, coming to the Donmar from 24
September; the stage version of Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbour Totoro at the
Barbican from 8 October) and big actors (the Harold Pinter Theatre — becom-
ing the go-to venue for starry casting — will follow Emilia Clarke in The Seagull,
which runs until 10 September, with David Tennant in Good, from 6 October,
while Simon Russell Beale takes on John Gabriel Borkman at The Bridge). Straitened
times, but rich pickings. MC

105







Ahead of their times: Charles Dickens and Prince
are basically twins in Nick Hornby’s new book



his record label; Dickens’ beef with American
copyright law, which meant his books were read-
ily reprinted there without him being consulted
or, more to the point, paid); their sometimes-
questionable approach to women (Prince with
his blurry line between sexual partner and
musical protégée; Dickens with his keen eye for
a sister-in-law), their love of creating long into
the night; the fact they both died — perhaps
due in part to their excessive, self-imposed work-
loads — before reaching 60.
Though he jokes about having a relaxed atti-

tude towards confirmation bias — “I think any
coincidence was milked for all it was worth” —
for Hornby as writer himself, there was one
aspect of their shared creative approach that was
particularly instructive and profound. “They
chucked it all out there,” he says, “and it makes
no [negative] difference to their reputations.
The reverse of that is people who are scared to
write a second book, or take six years to make
a second album or whatever. The perfectionists
do tend to come out worse, I think.”
Writing the book enabled Hornby to think
about his own creative process, too. “I’m much
DICKENS AND closer to the bash-it-out approach,” he says (not

the night-owl part though: “The days are long
PRINCE WILL SEEM enough”). It also gave him an excuse to immerse
himself in their work, and works about their
LIKE PEAS IN A POD work, and even reassess it. “With Dickens, my
favourite, David Copperfield, stayed my favour-
ite. But with Prince, I found so much music that
was new to me, great song after great song. Like
NICK HORNBY TALKS US THROUGH HIS his Jehovah’s Witness album [2001’s The Rainbow

IN-NO-WAY-RANDOM DUAL BIOGRAPHY Children]; I presumed it wasn’t going to be any
good, and it was. I mean, his quality control was
In 2020, the writer Nick Hornby purchased Fidelity and, more recently, screenplays such as wonky, but I could happily listen to only 21st-
a copy of the super-deluxe edition of Prince’s Wild and Brooklyn. “I thought, ‘Oh! That’s like century Prince for the rest of my days.”
Sign o’ the Times, a posthumous reissue of the Dickens!’ Dickens used to write two books at As for what the two of them might have made
Minnesotan musician’s ninth studio album. As once, and then I just thought I’d start messing of each other, Hornby thinks the main issue
this kind of edition often does, it included some around to see what was there.” would have been getting them together in the

extra material to give completist fans a reason to The result is Dickens and Prince: A Particular first place (obvious space-time continuum prob-
buy it. With some artists, that extra material might Kind of Genius, an intriguing — and, coming in lems permitting). “All you’d worry is that Prince
be a few songs from the archive, or a live record- at just over 100 pages, mercifully inexhaustive would have just sat in the corner not saying any-
ing or two. But this was Prince. The Sign o’ the — joint biography of the 19th-century novelist thing, and then Dickens, who wasn’t shy and
Times reissue included not one or two previously and 20th-century (briefly 21st) musical artist, retiring, and liked a chat, might think, ‘I’m giv-
unreleased tracks, but 63. by one of our most-celebrated enthusiasts. ing up on this guy and going to talk to someone
“It was clear that he was making three differ- Hornby finds all kinds of connections between else,’” says Hornby. “But if Prince had thought
ent albums at once, which all had different vibes the two, beyond a jones for striking facial hair: it was a treat to talk to Dickens — and no one
and voices,” says Hornby, 65, who has worked their extraordinary work ethics; their experi- else had been listening — I think they absolutely
as a music critic for the New Yorker and a book ences with childhood poverty; their conflicts would have understood the other.” MC
critic for The Believer, as well as writing era- with the industries in which they operated ‘Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius’
defining books including Fever Pitch and High (Prince’s famous name-changing protest against is published on 27 October (Viking)

106



Bro code: Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane
take the lead in Nicholas Stoller’s upcoming film
YOU WILL

TAKE


NOTE OF

HARRIS

DICKINSON BILLY EICHNER’S

GENIUS WILL

ONE PRETTY-BOY ENGLISH
BE CONFIRMED
ACTOR TO RULE THEM ALL

Harris Dickinson may have made his break-
through as a sexually confused Brooklyn youth
in 2017’s Beach Rats and be playing a North
JUDD APATOW KNOWS,
Carolina quarterback this summer in Where the
Crawdads Sing, but he’s very much a Brit (and AND AFTER ‘BROS’, SO WILL YOU
no, before you ask, he didn’t go to Eton): he was
born in Leytonstone in east London, in fact. The To those who have followed American comedian Billy Eichner’s career — chiefly,
26-year-old actor, whose jock-handsomeness his anarchic game show Billy on the Street (sample rounds: “Name a Woman” and
is undercut — in a good way — by his quiet, “Would You Have Sex With Paul Rudd,” guest-starring Paul Rudd) — his main-
understated performances, has already been stream breakthrough will come as small surprise. The vehicle is, of all things,
nominated for the EE Rising Star Bafta Award, a romcom: Bros, which has Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) as producer and
but over the next few months his profile will be Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as director and co-writer with Eichner.
ramping up considerably. It makes history as the first major studio film about two gay men and with an all
On the big screen, he joins the strong ensem- LGTBQIA+ cast.
ble cast (Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell, Adrien “When Nick [Stoller] told me he wanted to do a gay romcom, I said to him,
Brody) of Tom George’s 1950s murder-mystery ‘If you think we can just do When Harry Met Sally and swap out the man and

caper See How They Run as Dickie Attenborough woman for two men, then I’m not interested,’” says 43-year-old Eichner. “While
(out on 9 September), while the mainstream I wanted the story to be accessible to everyone, it also had to be authentic to gay
release of Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning audiences. To his credit, Nick immediately said ‘Whatever is honest will be best.’”
Triangle of Sadness, in which Dickinson plays Eichner plays Bobby, a 40-something podcast presenter with an aversion to
a model/influencer on a disastrous yacht holi- relationships. That is, until he meets the hunky Aaron, played by Canadian actor
day, is visible on the horizon too. On TV, he’ll Luke Macfarlane (“he’s like a gay Tom Brady”), and solitude seems suddenly less
be in Retreat, an FX series from the creators of appealing. Bros is celebratory, but also honest, about gay relationships.
The OA, which combines the best of both of his “For so many years, the world turned a blind eye to LGBTQ people and the
forthcoming films: wealthy people and untimely way we live our lives,” says Eichner. “And, as offensive and traumatising as that is,
death. Trust us, you’ll be seeing him around. MC it can also be liberating. If you didn’t consider us part of ‘normal society’, then
we didn’t have to operate by your old-fashioned, heteronormative rules. We made
up our own rules. Our friendships, sex lives and relationships are different.”
Person of interest: rising star
Harris Dickinson in ‘See How They Run’ The film goes there. Steroids, poppers and group sex all get airtime. “I thought
it was important to show these two men being physical with each other,” says
Eichner. “I think sex is hilarious, absurd and awkward. I understand there is
a shock value to it, because people have been so scared to go there in the past.”

A big-studio comedy is new ground for Eichner, who came up through New
York’s theatre and comedy scenes. Getting Bros off the ground was daunting. “Nick
and Judd, as straight white men, I guess, have a certain confidence,” he says. “But,
although I’ve had success, I’ve never been able to make something at this level. I’ve
never even starred in an indie movie. A lot of that is because, up until very recently,
Hollywood did not embrace openly gay actors and comedians.
“I overprepared as I always do, and essentially performed the movie for all the
higher-ups,” he remembers. “Much to my surprise, they essentially bought it in
the room. One of the execs called me later that day and said, ‘There’s about three
times a year when everyone agrees that we should make a movie, and today was
one of them.’” OLIVIA BLAIR
‘Bros’ is out on 28 October

107






DEADPAN

INDIE BANDS

WILL BE


HARD TO

GOOGLE




JOCKSTRAP? SPORTS
TEAM? DRY CLEANING?
SIRI’S GOT NOTHING


Remember when bands had big, blousy, memo-
rable names like The Flaming Lips, or Arcade

Fire, or …And You Will Know Us by the Trail
of Dead, or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or
even, lest we forget, Hootie & the Blowfish?
Those days are gone, Grandpa. Indie outfits
of today keep their names lo-fi and difficult
to fathom, let alone type into a search engine
without getting some practical-if-irrelevant-to-
the-task-at-hand results. So let us spare you from
accidentally placing a bulk order of genital-
Illustrations: Damon Sheeley/@sheeleyco. Photographs: Getty Images | Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers | Pooneh Ghana | Planet Photos
support pouches (curses to you, Amazon
one-click!) by telling you London duo Jockstrap
YOU CAN BE ‘IN’ ‘STRANGER THINGS’,
have a debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, out on
‘JURASSIC PARK’, ‘SQUID GAME’ ET AL…
9 September, Sports Team are on tour, includ-

ing a hopefully ironic date at Oxford University’s BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO?
Bullingdon Club (Sports Team actually met at
Cambridge — what a wheeze!), while London It used to be that the depth of a film or TV show’s penetration into the culture
four-piece Dry Cleaning’s new LP, Stumpwork, was measured by whether a junior minister tried to work in a laboured gag about
is out on 21 October. Oh, and on the album cover, it during a Commons debate about SureStart centres. Now the immersive
the title’s written on a bar of soap. In pubes. The theatre spin-off is the surest sign of a proper hit. Peaky Blinders: The Rise puts you
kids are… confusing. MC in the deeply stressful position of consigliere to Tommy Shelby. Shrek’s Adventure
gobbles up the unwary on the South Bank. Mamma Mia! The Party will outlive us
all. Of late, though, things have rather taken a turn. The new fandom is loving
A fresh sound: post-punk band Dry Cleaning are
well known for their use of spoken word in songs a show or film so much that you’re glad to witness your own destruction by its
bad guys.
If you’re around London from August onwards, you’ll also be able to whisk
yourself off to Isla Nublar — well, the ExCel Centre — and hot-foot it away from
a T-Rex at Jurassic World: The Exhibition, or to Hawkins, Indiana (read: Brent Cross)
for Stranger Things: The Experience. T-shirts and painstakingly edited fancams of
David Harbour aren’t enough anymore. Launching yourself, bodily, into an

environment where the fun is predicated on everything wanting to kill you —
including the drama graduate with the thousand-yard stare making sure your hour
slot doesn’t overrun — is the least you can do for your favourite show now.
But it gets better — by which we mean worse. The even-more adventurous
can now head to Riyadh for a Squid Game immersive-theatre experience (remem-
ber! No pre-show sharpeners!), and even more exciting — by which we mean
terrifying — is the Squid Game reality-television show, currently recruiting
cocksure British contestants who believe that they could definitely dodge
the giant doll’s bullets and give those pink-trackied guards the slip. Given we
are still having nightmares about, well, Knightmare, this might be a step too far
(into an admittedly now-shonky-looking CGI hole — but it seemed so real at

the time!). TN ○

Matt Smith wears navy wool
jacket, £1,600; white
cotton-twill shirt, £290; navy/
white spotted silk tie, £135;
navy wool trousers, £790,
all by Giorgio Armani

Opposite: chocolate corduroy-
velvet jacket, £2,270; sky-blue
cotton shirt, £475; chocolate
corduroy-velvet trousers, £710;
black leather moccasins, £220,
all by Gucci

109


































MR SMITH GOES TO WESTEROS




He’s been Doctor Who for the BBC and Prince Philip for Netflix, but Matt Smith’s most high-profile role

to date is his upcoming star turn in House of the Dragon, HBO’s epic Game of Thrones prequel. As he
steels himself for the inevitable, internet-breaking attention when the show lands in late August, the actor

reflects on a career distinguished by commanding performances on screen — and chronic indecision off it
















































Interview by Tom Lamont Photographs by Boo George Styling by Catherine Hayward

BY mid-career, the likes of Andrew Garfield, Riz vacillations. As we walk, Smith does a boom-
Ahmed and Ben Whishaw are huddled in one
ing impression: “Bloody hell-fire! Just make
group, experts at teasing out sympathy for char- a decision and ge’ron with it!” Now that he’s ap-
acters by rendering them as troubled or tor- proaching 40, Smith says, he intends to add
tured introverts. Smith is in another group. He some Foy-like clarity to his character. Gallagher-
is swinging off the fixtures with Daniel calibre bluntness. Blackburnian steel.
Kaluuya, Benedict Cumberbatch and Toms Har- He asks if I have any children, and says:
dy and Hiddleston, who bring audiences along “I would imagine having children allows this
HIS OWN ACCOUNT, MATT SMITH IS TERRIBLE AT by the sheer force of their confidence. There all to fade away a bit. Because there just isn’t
making decisions. The 39-year-old actor was little footage of House of the Dragon availa- the time to wank on and on. There isn’t the time
dithers before giving a yes or a no and — “Even ble at the time of writing this; Smith is tight- to be so self-involved, not if someone needs to
worse, so much worse,” Smith says — he con- lipped about his contribution. But expect go to school or they’ve got spaghetti hoops up
tinues dithering long after his commitments are phlegm. Expect nerve. Expect a performance their nose.” Smith doesn’t have children him-
in place. Back in 2010, when he landed the dialled up rather than down from an actor who self. For a period of his thirties he lived with
career-shaping lead role in Doctor Who, one knows exactly what he’s doing when the cam- the British actor Lily James, but that relation-
of Smith’s first actions was to second-guess eras roll… ship ended around 2020. If he’s involved with

his own casting. (He asked his agent, should Yet here he is, in person, about to undergo somebody now — anybody other than his Irish
I really do this? And his agent said, oh absolutely, a textbook Smithian wobble. We’ve agreed to terrier, Bobby — Smith isn’t saying. “But I do
you’re doing this.) Smith’s friend and fellow ac- meet close to where he lives in north London, think that’s what life is all about in the end. Chil-
tor Clare Foy tells a story about meeting him to go for a rambling walk over Hampstead dren. Making a family. You know, when you’re
at  a reading for The Crown, that rich, part- Heath. He arrives whistling, chest thrust out, dead, and you’re on the slab, that’s what’ll count.”
historical Netflix drama about the British Royal by all visible indications a decisive man — and Our walk has taken us on to an open, sun-
Family that began in 2016, bringing them both after scanning the scene, he suggests we have baked part of the Heath, where the grass comes
great acclaim, but about which Smith was hes- a drink in a pub instead. Diet Cokes poured up to our knees. There’s nobody around, only
itant. “I’m not sure I wanna do this,” Foy recalls and paid for, a table secured, he scans the scene crickets, and Smith risks quoting poetry. There
him mutter ing. “I’m not sure I wanna do this.” again — and suggests we do that walk. So we is a part of TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of
Soon, Smith will appear as a Westerosi set off. It’s a two-hour wander. Before we’re J Alfred Prufrock’ that is about death-bed rum-
prince in HBO’s House of the Dragon, a costly and done, Smith will have introduced and explored ination. He has the whole thing by heart and

ambitious expansion of the Game of Thrones fran- many subjects, light and large, proving himself mentally he scrolls to the relevant lines. “When
chise that is sure to be closely scrutinised by more than capable of firm opinion and solid I am formulated, sprawling on a pin/When I am
fantasy obsessives, entertainment-industry ex- emotional counsel. But one of the first things pinned and wriggling on the wall.”
ecutives and cynical TV critics when it arrives that happens is that we pass a lovely old house
on our screens this month. You can bet there he almost bought. The sight of it brings an HE WAS BORN IN NORTHAMPTON IN 1982, SEC-
was no quick, snap decision from Smith about actual moan of dismay from Smith. OND CHILD OF DAVID, who ran a plastics com-
this job. No iron certainty about whether to ac- “A long, drawn-out process, that. And one pany, and Lynne, who worked in promotions
cept. “Look,” he says, pushing his longish, dark of those indecisions I came to rue.” About as and then for a newspaper. His older sister
hair off his forehead. It is a changeable July day soon as it was too late to do anything proactive Laura, later to become a professional dancer,
and Smith, who is 5ft 11in, wears a navy pullo- about this dream house, he says, and after it appeared in local musicals. Smith himself was
ver, black jeans, black Reebok classics and grey- had been bought by somebody else, he came a promising footballer. He played all the time,
rimmed prescription shades that he swaps for back just to stand outside and stare at it: “To 10 hours a day, travelling to junior training ses-
thinner spectacles whenever the sun moves be- live in an element of regret.” I notice when he sions at Nottingham Forest and later joining
hind a cloud. “Look, none of this is helped by says this that he has a streak of grey in his hair. Leicester City’s youth team. Football was his
the fact that, as an actor, you’re constantly self- And no wonder. “Oh, I’m a fucking nightmare identity, and useful playground armour for a kid
referencing your own feelings. Feelings, feel- to live with, let me tell you… I’m lucky, though. who had a mild speech impediment. As a teen-

ings, feelings! When sometimes it’s not about I’ve got friends and family who’ll try to pull my ager he was diagnosed with spondylosis, a
feeling. It’s about deciding and doing. Some- head out of my arse as much as possible.” serious back complaint, and he had to take
how, though, I always seem to find myself dith- He is close with Noel Gallagher, Britain’s a year off sport. It left him in a race to get fit
ering things out.” unofficial president of plain speaking. The again in time for an important round of selec-
Odd that he should have this tendency, away pair recently spent Glastonbury weekend to- tions at Leicester. Smith was 16 or so. He didn’t
from his work, because whenever Smith is per- gether. By admiring and emulating his friend make the cut.
forming he transmits only conviction, whether Clare Foy, Smith has been trying to approach Now that he is an adult, his accent drifts
as an impetuous Doctor, a simmering Prince his career choices with more smartness and clar- freely between two distinct registers, the Lad
Philip in The Crown, or a gnarly Patrick Bate- ity, too. As for the most important figure in his and the Gent, trackable to those tribes that
man in the musical of American Psycho, a role life, his father, a Northerner born and raised in shaped him as a young man: footballers, then
he originated for the London stage in 2016. Blackburn — he always had a useful stock of actors. An influential drama teacher persuaded
When you think of the best British actors in no-nonsense phrases to undercut Smith’s Smith into school plays, and from there on to

111







an apprenticeship course at the National Youth were a royal consort, insta-fame, but not for exhausting stint inside one fan-policed fantasy
Theatre in London. He was studying drama any tangible achievement — more for what he world in his twenties, why do another? He speaks
and writing at the University of East Anglia was preparing to do. There was serious post- of the quality of the scripts, of HBO’s track
when he was cast in his first professional play, Tennant pressure on Smith as filming began. record in prestige TV, of the honour of
That Face, at the Royal Court. The actorly Gent A few weeks into shooting, he called his father being asked. Will it make you happy, I ask?
emerged to contend with the footballing Lad, David in a panic. He wasn’t sure he could carry “Well,” he says, “watch this space. I don’t know.”
and for the rest of Smith’s life his conversation- on. David told him that he could. “The hardest To date, his best work has been in contained
al voice has winged between. “My friends from thing in life is to adapt. But you’ve got to adapt.” projects, time-limited by agreement. He was
home say, ‘Urgh, he’s using his actor’s voice Smith quoted this advice when he appeared on well-reviewed in Unreachable, a play that ran for
again.’ I don’t even notice I’m doing it.” Desert Island Discs in 2018, des cribing David as four weeks at the Royal Court in 2016. The
After That Face, Smith was part of a touring the greatest influence on his life, “bar none”. Crown debuted that year, Smith’s involvement
production of The History Boys. He appeared Smith’s Doctor debuted in spring 2010. ending after two seasons, in 2018. On paper,
in an adaptation of a Philip Pullman novel for It was clear within minutes that it would work. the role had looked unpromising, a hospital pass.
TV. In 2008, when David Tennant announced He was watchable. Original. With his unusual Smith as the young Prince Philip? He wasn’t
he was leaving Doctor Who after a long, success- energy, he seemed to embody narrative mo- posh. He’d grown up around anti-monarchists

ful run, Smith was asked to audition. He had mentum, dragging viewers along by the ear- all his life. Yet Smith and Peter Morgan, The
never seen an episode. He admitted as much at lobe. He was on Doctor Who for four years and Crown’s creator, found something melancholy,
his read, cheekily blaming the BBC for airing he learnt lots, he says, mostly about work compelling and necessary in Philip. Smith was
the programme at 7pm on a Saturday night: ethic. This was an actor’s gym. “The line- nominated for several awards.
“At which time, I’m in a pub.” Despite — or learning was insatiable… and I suppose it sharp- “Didn’t win a thing,” he chuckles. Did he
maybe because of — a lack of familiarity with ened a tool for keeping secrets, too.” mind that? Smith pushes out his lips. “I don’t
the material, Smith had the nerve to freewheel, Useful, given his current job. There has have a lot of time for jealousy.” Everyone else
at one point improvising a conversation with been omerta around House of the Dragon since on those early seasons of The Crown seemed to
a fish in a tank in the audition room. “I got the HBO announced it last year. Smith points out win, though. Foy picked up a Golden Globe,
job in September,” he says. “But because David that there is a source book by George RR an Emmy. I ask Smith whether the footballer
was still doing the part, I couldn’t tell anyone Martin, “which takes some of the pressure off”, inside him — that week-in, week-out compet-
for months.” Actors who work together typi- in terms of him accidentally blabbing. We know itor he used to be — cared about being bested.
cally make polite enquiries about each other’s from that book that House of the Dragon is He tilts his head, considering, and says, “Don’t

future. What are you doing next, love? For ages, a prequel to Game of Thrones, set 200 years pri- get me wrong. There’s always a moment, after
Smith had to answer with a grunt: nada. or and recounting a bloody dynastic squabble ‘And the winner is’, that stings you. Because
“I told my mum. My dad. My sister.” As for over Westeros’s Iron Throne. Where Game of you’re there, you’re in a fucking suit, you’ve got
his two best friends, they knew what he’d Thrones was about rival families — immaculate, your mum with you, you’ve flown to Los Ange-
auditioned for. He was sat in a north-London blond Targaryens, beardy Starks, those les. And because everyone around you who’s
flatshare with one of them when an advert for shifty rich kids the Lannisters — the new in the same show keeps winning! But it stings
Doctor Who came on TV. Something about drama is all Targaryen. Smith plays one of the for a nanosecond. It isn’t important.” He con-
Smith’s manner, some twitch or smirk, set his contending blonds, a prince called Daemon tinues, “Clare won everything. My award was
mate thrashing about, pointing: “You got that who, in Martin’s source novels (mild, mild spoil- the absolutely beautiful and gracious things she
part! You got that part!” After a secretive Christ- er), is a longstanding contender for power. said about me in her speeches.”
mas Eve photoshoot, he told his grandfather It is not clear how many seasons of House of The two became firm friends, not only from
the following morning. Everyone else in his life the Dragon Smith has signed up for; or how their months on set together, but from their time
found out when the news went public in 2009. many years of his forties are to be spent under travelling to promote the show for Netflix.
“And everyone was like, what the fuck, man?” a glued-on yellow wig, but my guess would be Often laugh-out-loud funny as a pair, they pub-
Smith was 26. Suddenly it was as though he several, five at least. Having already done an licly mocked each other’s unwise film choices →










‘I’m a nightmare to live with, let me tell you… I’m lucky,


though. I’ve got friends and family who’ll try to pull my head



out of my arse as much as possible’

Charcoal cashmere-flannel
suit, £5,900; verdigris
chintz-poplin-cotton shirt,
£790; black calfskin boots,
£930, all by Hermès

‘That’s what life is all about in the end.


Children. Making a family. You know, when you’re dead,



and you’re on the slab, that’s what’ll count’



115







(Smith’s 2016’s horror-comedy Pride and Prej- sense of an absence. Smith asks whether I found
udice and Zombies was an obvious target) and it hard returning to work, and I explain that
they teased out a running joke about Foy’s profiling him is my first job since the funeral.
disdain for science fiction. She could scarcely His own first job was on House of the Dragon. He
believe some of the scenarios Smith had agreed found going back on location extremely diffi-
to take part in on Doctor Who; for instance, rid- cult, and he worries about future collisions be-
ing a flying shark to deliver Santa’s presents on tween his professional and personal life if he’s
Christmas Eve. You wonder what she’ll make asked to talk about David when he embarks on
of him with shoulder-length blond locks in his promotional commitments for HBO. “Once
a fantasy-scape full of CGI dragons. How would you speak once, it becomes for people to dis-
Smith talk Foy around to House of the Dragon if cuss with you.” He really doesn’t want that.
he had to? “To be in it with me? There would So no quotes, here, about the loss of his
be no words. To watch it? She might anyway, father. No words of his that can be taken up,
out of common courtesy or only to point and stripped of context, and set down again in
laugh. But no. A very hard sell.” a tabloid story. Neither of us, anyway, can come

Smith and Foy had not long finished a stage up with a better description of parental loss
run at the Old Vic, appearing in a two-hander than the one that Smith heard from a friend. It
about climate change called Lungs, when the goes like this. You’re walking down the street.
pandemic struck in 2020. That year, to raise It’s a random Tuesday. Then somebody swings
funds for the venerable theatre, the pair per- a golf putter in your face and that’s it. Tuesdays
formed Lungs one last time in front of 1,000 won’t ever be the same. Nothing will.
empty seats, a paying audience watching over We stop on a bench with a view over the tree-
Zoom. The stop-start months that followed tops to London’s skyscrapers. Smith runs a hand
were as bizarre and directionless for Smith as through the greyer part of his hair. Greyness
they were for any of us. “I had nothing to do,” is in his genes; David went fully grey at 30.
he recalls. “So I got fit. I wrote a bad film script. Smith considers himself lucky to have got to 39
And I learnt a load of poems off by heart… You with more colour than not. “I reckon I’ve got
feel a wanker, being an actor and flowering on a couple of years. Then it will all go. I’m not

about poetry. But I got a lot out of it” gonna dye it. I’m just gonna let it happen.”
Learning Eliot by rote, through 2020 and The thought of it puts him in mind of that
into 2021, he found that he was drawn to that coming watershed birthday in the autumn.
doleful ‘Prufrock’ poem in particular. It seemed He won’t have a party for his 40th, he says,
to start on a sigh. Smith’s life was about to get having tried that a decade ago, when he real-
a lot tougher that year. ised he was a better attendee than host. Instead,
he might mark the event with a bucket-list am-
“WHEN I AM PINNED AND WRIGGLING ON THE bition: going to Munich for Oktoberfest.
WALL,” he is reciting on the Heath, “Then how There, he’ll drink a few steins, let midnight
should I begin/To spit out all the butt-ends of strike, and settle into a new phase, not quite
my days and ways?” young, not quite old: a time when you’re “the
Our walk has taken us into a broad open middle child in your own life”, to use Smith’s
field. Sun beats down. Eliot’s words put us in off-the-cuff phrase.
mind of mortality, and we begin to talk about And who knows, he might get something
our fathers. David Smith died in May 2021. My done about his chronic indecision, too. “I’d
own father died recently as well. Smith has like to try to cut away the bullshit. Become

already shown himself to be a warm, curious more acute. My dad used to tell me, ‘There’s
companion, a keen asker as well as answerer of no such thing as a bad decision. The only bad
questions, effortlessly generous in spirit. But decision is no decision.’ And that’s true,
even so, he surprises me by turning around on I think.” So no more dithering. Wham-bam
the path, when he hears about my loss, and decisions only. Zero regrets. We’ve walked off
clamping me in a tight embrace: “Mate.” the Heath by the time he says all this, and it’s
We carry on through the field, pretty unfortunate timing, because now that lovely
peeled, pretty raw, comparing notes on be- house comes back into view.
reavement. It’s hot, and for a while the conver- Smith gulps. Ah well, one dither for the road.
sation falls into a hazy limbo where we’re not “Excuse me,” he says, “I’m just gonna have
Cream cashmere roll-neck
quite interviewer and interviewee, not quite a last little moment of regret while we pass the
jumper, £1,060, by Ralph
Lauren Purple Label confidential intimates, just sons, trying to make front door.” ○

Grey cotton-cashmere-corduroy
jacket, £4,730; silk pocket
square, £170, both by Brunello
Cucinelli. White cotton vest,
stylist’s own. Producer: Rachel
Louise Brown. Grooming:
Paul Donovan using Kiehl’s.
Shot at Stockwell Studios

117












































‘There’s always a moment after [not winning an award] that


stings you. Because you’re there, you’re in a fucking suit, you’ve


got your mum with you, you’ve flown to LA’

Photographs by Fashion by


LUC BRAQUET DAVID NOLAN









































































OFFICE APPROPRIATE






























WFH is so 2021. As the world



gets back to business, menswear


smartens up its act

Chocolate corduroy-velvet jacket, £2,270; black/multicoloured wool
waistcoat, £860; sky-blue cotton shirt, £475; black leather tie, £400;
chocolate corduroy-velvet trousers, £710; grey leather moccasins,
£695, all by GUCCI. Grey cotton socks, £13.50, by PANTHERELLA


Black/multicoloured Prince of Wales checked wool jacket, £2,360;
white cotton-poplin shirt, £475; black leather tie, £400; black/
multicoloured Prince of Wales checked wool trousers; £1,000; black
crocodile-leather moccasins, £4,310, all by GUCCI. Cream cotton
socks, £13.50, by PANTHERELLA. Black leather belt, stylist’s own

120










































































































Brown tweed blazer, £3,450;
white twill-cotton shirt, £350;
dark-grey cashmere-knitted
tie, £230; multicoloured
silk pocket square, £170, all
by BRUNELLO CUCINELLI.
Tortoiseshell acetate spectacles,
£595, by EB MEYROWITZ

Brown mulesing-free wool
jacket, £965; burgundy striped
organic-cotton shirt, £290;
brown mulesing-free wool
trousers, £485, all by VIVIENNE

WESTWOOD. Black calf-leather
loafers, £870, by CHURCH’S.
Brown leather belt, stylist’s own

122

Black/cream pinstripe wool three-
piece suit, £2,060; black/white
striped cotton shirt, £380; grey
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PURPLE LABEL. Cream cotton
socks, £13.50, by PANTHERELLA

124
Lilac shawl-wool blazer,
£900; multicoloured cotton
shirt, £275; purple silk tie,
£110; lilac wool trousers,
£400, all by PAUL SMITH.

Grey leather belt, stylist’s own

Grey smooth-fabric jacket,
£209, by BOSS. Black silk shirt,
price on request, by BUDD.
Brown silk tie, and matching
pocket square, both stylist’s own

126






















































































































Blue cotton jacket, £2,800; blue viscose overshirt, £990;
blue viscose trousers, £1,080, all by LOUIS VUITTON



128

























































































Taupe wool-mohair-barathea jacket,
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cotton-wool-fleece joggers, £1,150;
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all by DIOR. Tobacco suede loafers,
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Brown Prince of Wales checked
wool-twill coat, £4,200; off-
white/camel cotton-wool-fleece
joggers, £1,150; grey cashmere
knitted socks, £480; brown
Prince of Wales checked wool-
twill beret, £700, all by DIOR.
Brown suede mules, £840,
by DIOR BY BIRKENSTOCK



Navy wool suit, £848, by TIGER
OF SWEDEN. Yellow cotton
shirt, price on request, by BUDD.
Multicoloured silk tie, stylist’s own

131

Grey/beige pinstriped
wool jacket, £1,070; white
wool-cashmere sweater,
£900; grey wool trousers,

£295, all by CANALI

132
















































































































Gutter credit in here


Burgundy wool blazer, £1,690; burgundy wool trousers,
£580; burgundy leather bag, £1,450, all by FENDI.
White silk shirt, £305, by BUDD. Vintage tie, stylist’s own

Gutter credit in here

Charcoal wool-flannel striped
suit, £5,000; grey technical-poplin
shirt, £790; charcoal cashmere
tie, £215, all by HERMÈS. Black
calf-leather loafers, £870, by

CHURCH’S. Grey cotton socks,
£13.50, by PANTHERELLA.
Black leather belt, stylist’s own

135
















































































































Purple wool jacket, £2,435;
light-purple cashmere polo shirt,
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Black leather belt, stylist’s own

136









































































































Black wool blazer, £2,250;
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Black wool blazer, £2,550;
black cotton-jersey roll-neck,
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black leather shoes, £1,200,
all by DOLCE & GABBANA





139




















































































































Grey leather overall, £8,300;
orange cotton knitted polo
shirt, £920, both by PRADA

Black velvet tuxedo jacket, £2,500; white cotton-twill shirt, £290;
black silk tie, £155; black wool-silk tuxedo trousers, £880

Black velvet jacket, £1,800; black silk shirt, £680; black silk tie,

£155; black velvet trousers, £940, all by GIORGIO ARMANI
Photographer’s assistant: Kadaré Aliu | Styling assistant: Nikki Ranger
Grooming: Paul Donovan using Moroccan Oil | Models: Harvey
James @ Elite; Luke Cousins @ IMG; Kelvin Adewole @ Next

141

142

























































































































PHOTOGRAPH BY LARRY SULTAN

IMITATION





CJ Hauser





















THE SUMMER THE GABLES AND THE FRANKLINS FELL IN LOVE
WITH EACH OTHER they were drunk off their best gin, their just-
waning youths and their own good fortunes. They became
rich, and then they became neighbours. Helen and Logan

Gable (old family money) moved to Westerhazy Lane that
spring, after Grandmother Dorothea left the Victorian to Lo,
only a few months before Angie and Kit Franklin (their own
money, Kit worked at a hedge fund called Privateer, so, per-
haps, “their own” money) bought and gutted the Colonial
next door, renovating it in a sleek, modern way commonly
agreed upon as desirable.
Summer’s end was marked by the last weekend before the
first day of school. Angie was the assistant field-hockey coach
at the university and tryouts were just past. Angie spent the
evening dry-lining the field for their first official practice.
Someone from Buildings and Grounds had come by but she’d
insisted on doing it herself. When she was through, the neat,
chalked lines across the terrain pleased her greatly and she
was exhausted but happy when she got home to Westerhazy,
only then realising the dry-line marker was still in the trunk

of her Subaru.
The backyard was a situation. Backyards, rather, because
while there was no physical marker of the place where the yard
beyond the Gables’ solarium doors became a differ-
ent yard that ran up to the flagstones outside the sliding-glass
door to the Franklins’ kitchen, these were two separate prop-
erties, legally speaking, and somewhere such a line was surely
drawn on a map. The yards used to be distinguishable by
their aesthetics, but Kit grew so frustrated with how shaggy the →

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Gables let their side grow and had started mowing it for Kit’s shirt was unbuttoned.
them and taking the price out of Logan in cocktails, at which Helen lay in the grass and rolled around.
point even the lawn didn’t reflect their boundaries. In the “What’s that doing for you?” Kit asked.
middle swath of lawn between the houses there was a full “I’m pretending I’m in a pool,” Helen said.
croquet set abandoned mid-game and an assortment of chairs “You’re nuts,” Angie said, laughing in such a way that
friends had left in anticipation of their return and it was here Kit admired the muscles across her stomach for how they
all four Westerhazies gathered most evenings. Helen had rose and receded with the laughter. Angie had always been
bought tiki torches, and Kit noted, in a way he’d thought fit, but she’d been prepping drills for the season and
was funny, that he wasn’t sure how to feel about white peo- a new strength had seized her body. This new body, which
ple with torches, and Helen, instead of laughing, offered to had been inside his wife’s body — Kit had not seen it
throw the torches away, apologising in a way that was so over coming. He tossed back the end of his cocktail and
the top it seemed she was also apologising to some unseen crunched the ice.

delegate of other Black people. Kit smacked a mosquito to “Pretend with me, it’s very nice,” Helen said.
death on his arm, and said, “Jesus, Helen, I’m getting eaten Logan, who was always very ready to Yes, And, lay on his
alive, light the torches already.” And so Helen had, and the stomach and pretended to Australian-crawl across the lawn.
awkwardness passed, though the torches remained a reminder, “Oh, god,” Angie said. She chucked ice cubes at them.
and everyone hoped they would soon run through their fuel “I’m embarrassed just watching you.”
so they could buy some goddamned citronella candles. Logan warbled in a put-on voice, “Come on in, the
That night, when the Gables and the Franklins gathered, water’s fine!”
everything had the energy of fall coming over it. That last Helen and Lo were theatre people. Logan was either
chance for ease feeling that compels people to squash too affecting or recovering from a Hepburnish mid-Atlantic
much love and fun into the final days of summer. As the sun accent and taught drama at the university. Helen had a soft
sank, an overripe smell came from the orchard grasses and cadence, having grown up in Virginia. She sewed costumes
a gold tinge beset everything that had once seemed green. for the local playhouse. The first night they’d met, Angie

It got darker outside but no cooler and hot air hung across — remembering a teenaged phase when she’d felt uniquely
everyone’s shoulders like a mantle. Logan made them understood by the orphan Éponine and learned all the
cocktails and he didn’t seem to be measuring anything he lyrics to Les Misérables — offered this up and she and Logan
poured from the bottles on his grandmother’s cocktail cart sang a few bars. Angie was Italian, from the Bronx, and sang
on wheels, but the rattle of ice in the shaker was festive. like it, but the lyrics were still there, at the ready, inside her.
They drank from small glasses, etched around the rim, so Kit was alarmed he might never have known these lyrics
delicate it was a miracle they did not crack upon their search- were in his wife’s head at all without the Gables, but also
ing mouths. The whole arrangement struck Kit as a very intrigued that he might learn new things about her in their
convincing imitation of adulthood. company. He had grown up just a few hours from Westerhazy
They were adults, of course. in New London, his father stationed at the naval base there,
(They were all of them 29.) but the Gables made that feel like another planet.
They added ice to their cocktails. Drank them thirst- “Forget the patio furniture,” Kit said — and for many
ily, too fast. They grew bored and then scared of being years to come Kit would remember that it was he who had
bored and so they toasted to everything they could think suggested this — “a pool is what we really need.”
of. They toasted to getting a proper patio set for next sea- “Kit?” Angie said.
son. They toasted Kit for being rich. They toasted Helen He paced around the Gables. The gin helped Kit imag-

for not losing the expensive pair of sunglasses she’d bought ine the wild possibility of it. Imagine himself as a man with
in May and had worried she would lose before the sum- a pool. Imagine his kids growing up swimming, neon
mer was over. floaties on their chubby arms, splashing in the shallow end.
“TO HELEN’S SUNGLASSES,” they all said. Kit was sentimental about his hypothetical fatherhood.
Angie was now only in her sports bra and shorts and He could see it. He just couldn’t pace it.














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“There’s not room enough for a pool back here,” Angie looked at her, surprised. She smiled. Her face was sweaty
said, reading his thoughts, or, perhaps, warning him. but glowing. She was holding her hair up off her neck, the
Helen sat up, brushing grass clippings from her freckled clean slice of her sports bra cutting across her strong shoul-
forearms. She tightened her yellow headwrap. “Things were ders. Kit imagined his beautiful wife soaking her muscles in
handled badly with the subdivision,” she said. Her accent a hot tub, imagined himself sinking in beside her. In fact, he
grew stronger when she drank, Kit noticed, ba-yud-ly. imagined this: driving home from work, parking in the
“We each have room for about half a pool,” Kit declared. cul-de-sac near the daylily patch, and in the time it took him
“Perfect!” Logan said, righting himself. “Let’s do it.” to walk from the drive to the house, stripping off every bit
He looked very handsome just then, the way pale of clothing, his tie, his button-down, his undershirt, his
people do after the luxury of summer sun. His shirt was open pants, then unlatching a garden gate — even in Kit’s fantasy,
at the neck. there was a gate for safety — and then running, leaping
“Do what, dear?” Helen was mixing them fresh drinks. naked into the clean water and washing the whole of the day

“Build a pool!” Logan said. at Privateer away.
“Half a pool,” Kit said. But then, Kit realised he had to factor Logan and Helen
“Half plus half,” Logan said, “is one whole pool.” into his vision.
“There really is just enough room,” Angie was eyeball- He revised himself into a swimsuit. It was still good.
ing it now, pulling her hair up from the base of her neck Even then.
where it was making her too hot. “If we did it together across “I doubt it would be good for the value of the property,”
the yards it would be the perfect size.” Angie said.
“Isn’t it illegal?” Helen said. “To do that?” “Who doesn’t want a pool!” Helen said.
“Says who!” Logan said, “It’s our land, isn’t it? We can “A shared pool,” Kit corrected.
do whatever we want with it.” “You only have to care about property value if you ever
(It was, to be clear, not their land. It was Mohegan land. plan to move,” Logan said, like a true Gable. He gestured
Alas, this was not on their minds. Westerhazy was still around at his grandmother’s erstwhile yard. Fireflies clus-

a little wild back then. Not very wild. It was still Fairfield tered over the patches of unmown grass and the tomatoes
County. Still Connecticut. The United States. The Gold Helen had planted in May. They were now so bountiful they
Coast. 2006. But fewer things had been subdivided and bowed their stalks. “Who’s going anywhere?” Logan said.
more woods were still standing and no one had paved over Angie was running to the driveway now and they all
the wetlands to add another lane to the parkway in the shouted after her, “Angie, we love you, come back!”
middle of the night. And so, even though they could hear In this moment, this moment of the summer, this moment
the pulse of the highway from their windows, there were of his youth, this moment many cocktails deep into the even-
also troupes of coyotes who yipped and celebrated at night. ing, Kit could not conceive a time in which they would not
Both the Gables and the Franklins could hear them. When live here. When they would not love the Gables. Would
they did, Helen always yipped along in bed and Angie mur- not love who he and Angie were with the Gables. And so,
mured, you get ’em, before rolling over (the men were not like a person in love, he suspended his disbelief.
compelled to dialogue with the coyotes, a small tragedy of Angie returned, giggling a mischievous drunken laugh
gender). And so they lived in a wild place and a tame place Kit remembered from those nights on the way home from
and they were comfortable but not bored and this was good.) Privateer when they used to go to the Shebeen for drinks
Helen started imagining the pool for them: “Here’s where and it felt like they were up to something. Ever since they
the ladder to the deep end will be. I think we should have left the city, he feared they were teetering on the precipice

a lovely bench right there for soaking. God, I wish I were of an adulthood that would snatch their youth away and,
soaking right now.” She was in the middle of the croquet with it, their happiness.
court now. A crushed beer can beneath the third wicket. But could he imagine Angie laughing this way, by a pool?
Her hair was frizzing up, her headwrap unspooling. He could.
“I think there should be a hot tub,” Angie said, and Kit Angie had the dry-line marker, still full of white chalk. →














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She cleared her throat, gestured to it, then began trotting was not what the Gables and Franklins wanted, or, at
the marker around the yard, well, the yards really, but this least, not all they wanted. They also wanted bodies in the
was the last time they were ever truly plural. She drew pool. They wanted the pool to give them permission to be
a wobbly orb, a gallbladdery shape around Kit and the Gables. bodies, half-naked and buoyant. To feel young, and mischie-
When she was finished, she came puffing over. They sat at vous, and beautiful. To invite their friends to do the same.
its centre. So they told their guests it was a pool party, but, as people
“There you go,” Angie said. “Our pool.” arrived, it turned out this meant vastly different things to
Kit didn’t believe in the gris-gris his Louisiana grand- different people.
mother sometimes talked about, but he knew there was Some guests had not even worn swimsuits.
a strange power in drawing a white-chalk circle. That enclos- Rita, from the playhouse, arrived in a black smock and
ing them in its shape bound them together. He felt as he had colourful beaded necklace and carried a bottle of chilled gin,
on his wedding day, when he and Angie had traded rings because pool party. Jay and Brandon from the hedge fund both

and said a vow. It was a serious thing that could not be wore loud swim trunks which Kit immediately referred
undone easily. to as whiteboy shorts, even though Brandon was white
and Jay was Black, because they were pastel and printed
THE POOL WAS OPEN. with little seashells and whales on them respectively. They
It was all the more stunning for taking up so much of the had gone shopping on lunchbreak and bought them,
yard. If you exited the Franklins’ or the Gables’ house you together, it turned out, because pool party. Angie had invited
found yourself, at once, on the shared deck, made of red friends from FU Athletics who had all come in functional
cedar planks, perfectly smooth. The pool was built of grey swimwear as if they anticipated not only swimming but also
stone and water ran in a fountainfall from the tub at the far possibly competition, because pool party. Boyd, Logan’s
end. Its wobbly organ-shape seemed always to invite the ancient theatre mentor, the chair of the department, wore
swimmer to greater depths. The water was teal, jewel-like a seersucker suit and palm hat, perhaps having conflated pool
when the sun cut through it to the stones beneath, though party with garden party, but he looked so splendid there

sometimes this effect was marred by several dozen waxy was no objecting.
magnolia leaves from the Gables’ pink-blooming tree — Two hours into the party and the guests strolled around
which was absolutely too close to the pool — which were the pool, complimenting it to each other, enquiring about
always dropping in, traversing the water’s surface like an contractors, asking who knew who and how. There was
armada of elfin boats, no matter how often some teenage a merry din of chatter. They were like members of a wed-
boy was paid to scoop them out with a net. ding party — Franklins or Gables? Bride or the groom?
The Franklins’ tree bloomed white and was far enough And then there was Lily.
away from the pool that its leaves never dropped in, because Paul had come too, but really, there was Lily.
Kit had considered such things. If you had asked Logan why he thought it appropriate to
He’d asked Logan whether it might be possible to uproot invite his students to a pool party otherwise comprised of
and replant his tree, to move it back a bit. “Sure, sure,” Logan adults, professors and coaches — and Kit really would have
had said. He would look into it. But the tree did not seem liked to ask him, as he immediately saw how uncomfortable
to interest Logan and Kit had come to understand that Logan having students around made Angie’s Athletics colleagues
was only a man of action in matters that did not bore him. who were, by this time, soused— Logan would have said:
But it was summer again, and they’d decided to throw because they are adults.
a party. It was important to them that the party make clear It was true that Lily and Paul were 21 and maybe that

they’d built a pool so people could swim in it, not just so was all that counted in Lo’s book. Or maybe it was
they could say they had a pool. So many pools serve only as because Lo was a genius when it came to parties, which are
a performance of wealth, a painting on the wall no one their own kind of theatre, and he knew that, by inviting
admires but whose provenance everyone is quick to men- them, there would be something intriguing for the rest
tion while showing guests the way to the powder room. This of the guests to talk about. A tension in the air created by














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two beautiful young people in their midst. were not yet 30! They were at a pool party!
The semester was just now ending and in the production That was now over.
of A Streetcar Named Desire Lo had directed, Paul had played The late twenties were an age that hung on them
Stanley, and Lily, Blanche. Helen saw it on opening night differently. And while some of the guests (the single, the
with both Franklins as her dates. As a southerner, Helen queer, the artistic, the childless, the all-of-the-above) had
dreaded the play for the way so many actors turned Blanche found the party disappointingly adult and pitied the Gables
into a cartoonish spectacle of heavily accented whims. But and Franklins for their premature domestication, others (the
Lily did no accent work whatsoever. She was aware of how married, the parental, the corporate landowning class) found
the words should fall, and played the role like a person who the party eccentric, wild even, and were rejuvenated by the
understood the pain Blanche’s lines were obscuring. Paul, occasion. This was the way of the late twenties: the life
for his part, was a surprising Stanley. He was queer, and choices of others manifested suddenly and garishly and it
Korean-American, and he brought himself to the table, play- rattled a person to think there were so many different ways

ing Stanley queerish, and Koreanish, and he was so sexually of living. Surely they couldn’t all be making the right choices,
magnetic that Helen and Angie later confessed it made them could they? Surely some of them were wrong?
uncomfortable to be asked to see this 21-year-old in such In a way, Paul jack-knifing into the pool and Lily splash-
a light. It was a performance that made the tension of all the ing in her sweater bikini resolved this existential crisis for
unsaid things, all the unmet desires between the actors, bris- the guests. The illusion that they were in the prime of life
tlingly tense. The audience was rapt. was dispatched at the moment of Paul’s jack-knifing into the
For all the ways it had been easy to see Lily and Paul as unbroken surface of the water. Whatever differences existed
adults onstage, their interpretation of “pool party” made this between them, they were no longer young.
impossible in real life. Everyone began acting strangely. Trying to prove to Lily
Lily arrived in a bikini Helen could only assume was made and Paul, or perhaps to each other, or perhaps to themselves,
of a sweater. It was two rainbow-crocheted triangles and she that they could still hang. That this was a cool party. That they
wore it with jean shorts that inexplicably went above Lily’s were not so different from the people they had been five

navel but did not cover her butt. Paul wore black, knee- and 10 and 15 years ago. Brandon shotgunned a beer. Rita
length denim cut-offs and a green, Hawaiian shirt open over started making people try on her necklace and talking about
his bare chest, which was heavily tattooed with a traditional sex. Even Kit was not immune, and found himself cursing
assortment of daggered hearts, sparrows and ships. His more than he naturally did.
nipples were pierced. But the party wore on, and it refused to stop being
The party clocked them when they arrived. a perfectly lovely adult party.
A car beeped as Lily locked it and they crossed the lawn. Then it was dark out, elevenish, the lawn illuminated by
Paul did not break stride as he dropped a jug of Carlo Rossi two overlapping circles of light projected from the
onto the drinks table, flung his shirt onto a chaise and jack- outdoor floodlights of the Westerhazy houses. The guests
knifed into the water. had thinned out.
Until that point, no one’s definition of pool party had The Gables and the Franklins were disappointed. They
involved going into the pool. had imagined the pool party would make them feel giddy,
Lily followed close behind and soon the two of them like teenagers telling friends their parents were out of town
were frolicking in a way that was not strictly sexual for Lily’s for the weekend. Instead, they felt like the parents.
relative straightness and Paul’s relative queerness, and yet Perhaps that’s why Kit started shuffling a deck of the
they were so clearly in love with each other, so appreciative Gables’ playing cards and suggested they play Kings.

of each other’s beauty, and they were dramatic, and they “Hell, yes,” said Jay from the hedge fund.
were devastatingly young. “You’re taking us here?” Angie said.
If you had spoken to the party’s guests before Lily “Everyone needs a new drink,” Kit said.
and Paul arrived you would have found them cheerful. “What’s Kings?” Lily asked Logan, seeking knowledge
Most of the guests considered themselves young. They from a mentor. →














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“No idea,” Lo said. his shoulders and just as she seemed on the brink of saying
“A drinking game!” Angie exclaimed. “You must have something… cast her roving eyes upon greener pastures,
played in college.” someone more important to talk to, upon Paul, and shoved
“You have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of Boyd away (Boyd began laughing). Lily rushed over and all
Logan Gable in college,” Helen laughed. “I played once, but collapsed, cross-legged, in front of Paul, hands on her
freshman year. Each card is a prompt, a dare, a rule.” thighs. She leaned in conspiratorially, and said, “Tell me
And so they played Kings. something true.”
They gathered chairs in a circle on the illuminated lawn, They yelled and clapped.
the cards on a table in the centre. Fours were rules and after “Holy shit,” Kit said. He’d never seen anything like it.
Logan pulled one everyone had to refer to him as the emperor The girl had become, completely, Logan. Things he had
of ice cream. Sixes were for drinking, and Kit had to drink not even realised about Logan; his walk, for example. Was

a six-ingredient cocktail mixed by Jay that was actually this acting?
very good if you didn’t have to take more than a sip of it, Logan walked into the circle and stuck out his hand. Lily
which Kit, alas, did. Jacks were dares and Rita and Boyd shook it. She bowed, her bikini and Hawaiian shirt some-
were dared to jump in the pool. They did, and then pro- how giving her, now, a credible artistic air.
ceeded to put on what Boyd called a mermaid show. When Kit felt himself soften to the Gables. He should not hold
they came out, Boyd’s suit sopping wet, Brandon and Jay a misplanted tree and teenaged party guests against them.
brought them towels and patted them dry. By this point, They were theatre people. This was what they offered the
they were feeling very drunk and lit up. The party had finally Franklins — the thrill of a spectacle! It had brought the party
found its momentum. alive. The game continued, the insects loud in the woods,
Aces were imitations. The theatre kids had insisted. It was stars manifesting in chaotic numbers. More dares, more
super-bonding, Paul said, when they did them in class. drinks. They were almost at the end of the deck, everyone
You had to do the person seated to your left. getting tired, when Logan pulled the ace of spades. They’d
Lily pulled the ace of hearts, which meant Logan. She all been hoping for this. He stood up. “OK, who am I doing?”

stood up, flicking the card in her hand a few times, and then He was a little drunk. “Everybody, I think.” He started inspect-
placed it on the table. She was still in her crocheted bath- ing the circle.
ing suit, and now wore Paul’s shirt over it, her long white “No! The person to your left!” Angie yelled.
thighs bare beneath the Hawaiian print. “You do Helen!” Rita said.
She shook out her shoulders, which seemed a bit much, Lo turned to his wife and smiled. Helen smiled back. Lo
but she was a drama student. Lily turned to Logan: “Permission was standing in the centre of the ring, as Lily had. He cleared
to proceed?” his throat a few times, batted his eyelashes, and in a cartoon
“I want to see this,” Boyd said, leaning forward in his drawl, he said: “Y’all take care now!”
chair, still dripping. There was an awkward titter of laughter from the group.
Logan nodded, smiling, like the owner of a racehorse Helen was silent. So was Lily.
who knows exactly what it is capable of. “C’mon, Logan,” Kit said, and clapped his hands together
Lily began walking the inside of their circle like a track. twice. “Don’t hold back.”
At first, it seemed she was just gathering her thoughts, but Angie was sitting in Kit’s lap, her arm around his shoul-
as she walked, her gait changed. She sank into her pelvis as ders, and she squeezed his arm gently. This meant: Logan
she moved, leaned back so that her hips preceded the rest wasn’t holding back. He couldn’t do it.
of her. Then, she added a slight bounce to the way she lifted “I do declare!” Logan said, hand to his chest.

out her step, a spring. She did two more laps, adding a neck There was less laughter, not only because he sounded
swivel, surveying the guests. Lily cast her eyes on Boyd and nothing like Helen, but because what Lo was offering wasn’t
her whole body drew upward, as if pulled by a spring, so much an imitation as a regurgitation of some vague south-
and then, as part of the downward motion, she rushed toward ern thing. The hot tub fountain-fall splashed infinitely into
him, lifted him from his seat, scrutinised him, brushed off the pool behind them as they waited, and waited.














IMITATION