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48 Articles

THE MARRIAGE BAS

•2016 MARKED the first calendar year in which marriage equality has been the law of the land. So quickly has the idea been embraced, so wildly uncontroversial has it become that we almost have to remind ourselves: Last year’s Supreme Court decision allowing it was epic, heroic, a rare crying-in-the-streets moment. Unless you’re a homophobic baker upset about the fabulous cakes you have to bake for gay couples, I think we can all agree: It has made us a kinder, better nation. But now that we can all marry ourselves, I keep wondering when we’re going to have the larger discussion, the one we’ve been putting off. The one about marriage itself. Because it’s been here the whole time, sitting like a veiled elephant in the room. This country is way too…

THE MARRIAGE BAS

Readers’ Choice Awards Edition Every year we pour ourselves some fine bourbon, loosen our smoking jackets, tally up our page views, and revel in the year’s most popular mic drops. Your Favorite… …Long-form A Positive Life Justin Heckert told the story of Badger, a man who’d been infected with HIV as a child—by his father. Even the Internet’s trolliest trolls were moved. “Since I’ve forgiven him, that’s all I can do. Just live my life and show him what I’m made of.” —BADGER, ON THE MAN WHO INFECTED HIM WITH HIV 25 YEARS AGO BEST of the BEST The 2016 editions of the “Best American” series nodded to GQ stories in several anthologies. THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING MITCH MOXLEY “The Reddest Carpet,” March THE BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING DEVIN FRIEDMAN “J. R. Smith Is Always Open,” January BUCKY McMAHON…

BEST STUFF OF THE YEAR 2016

THE SHARPEST WAY TO SHAVE The weight and balance of Hone’s Type 15, a Dutch-born hunk of solid textured brass, make the safety-razor shave safer (and more stylish) than ever. $140 | honeshaving.com SWITCH TO A WHOLE NEW FREQUENCY Even high-end headphones sound low-end when you’re plugging them directly into a computer—or even worse, a phone. JDS Labs’ The Element amp/digital-to-audio converter enriches your sound without requiring audiophile expertise: There’s only one knob. Pair it with the Focal ELEAR headphones, so clear and comfortable you’ll re-listen to your favorite songs to hear all the sounds you’ve been cheated out of. The Element | $349 jdslabs.com | ELEAR $1,000 | focal.com LOAD A LOWER-KEY PIPE We don’t get why head shops are still stocked with twisty, swirly paraphernalia that seems inspired by a trippy experience a glassblower had…

BEST STUFF OF THE YEAR 2016

Call It the Neck Tie of Winter

HAIR: BARRY WHITE AT BARRYWHITEMENSGROOMING.COM. GROOMING: KUMI CRAIG USING CLARINS MEN.ON GUYS , CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LE FT, 1. S UNGLASSES: TOM FORD. BRACELET: GILES & BROTHER. 2. DOG-TAG NECKLACE: DEGS & SAL. NAVY BRACELET: DEL TORO. WATCH : NIXON. 3. UMBRELLA: BURBERRY. WATCH: SHINOLA. 4. BELT: DS Q UA RED 2. 5. BRIEFCASE : LOUIS VUITTON . GLASSES: HISOWN 6 .BACK PACK: N EIL BARRETT. BELT: TRASH AND VAUDE VILLE.…

Call It the Neck Tie of Winter

I just bought my first pair of nice shoes. But now I’m afraid to scuff them, so I mostly keep them in the closet. Is it silly to save them for special occasions? This speaks to a bigger issue: Do I wear my good shit, or do I save it because it’s good? It’s the Sneakerhead’s Dilemma, and it’s confounded philosophers for decades. There really isn’t a right or wrong answer, just di≠erent outlooks. Here’s mine: Wear them as much as possible. Nice shoes especially. They can take a beating without falling apart and more often than not look better with a few war wounds. And the more you wear something, the less the price tag hurts. Those $800 boots seem a lot less expensive when you wear them four times…

Introducing the Man You’ve Been Listening to All Year

You may recognize him at this point—the jaunty bandanna, those Japanimation eyes. At least you know his music. Metro Boomin (real name Leland Wayne) has produced basically all of hiphop’s most vital artists: Nicki Minaj, Drake, Kanye, Gucci Mane. He’s the primary collaborator with the twin poles of Atlanta ego, Young Thug and Future. He did “Jumpman,” “Where Ya At,” and that song about the club goin’ up on a Tuesday. You could argue that this wiry 23-year-old, who dropped out of Morehouse at 19 to make beats, is the good-natured embodiment of hiphop’s new generation. One that’s nocturnal, transnational, moneyed, genderneutral, and shot through with pastels. Here, Metro tells us how he melds Nike with Saint Laurent the same way he mixes Tokyo with the trap. And the hits just…

Introducing the Man You’ve Been Listening to All Year

Labels We Love > A Bright Spot in Russia Relations

Demna Gvasalia Radical streetwear that taunts tradition In 2014, no one could’ve predicted that Georgian-born Demna Gvasalia would be named artistic director of Balenciaga. Back then, he and his “antifashion” collective Vetements had just introduced their $1,250 oversize hoodies, and the establishment was howling—not because $1,250 was too much, but because it was too much for an unknown designer. But that was his whole point: Your logo isn’t worth a ruble more than mine. To Gvasalia, the DHL shipping logo has as much inherent value as Chanel’s double C. So he sent a DHL shirt down the runway and called it high fashion. As an inside joke, the model in that DHL shirt was... Gosha Rubchinskiy Hardcore punk meets normcore sportswear ...Gosha Rubchinskiy. Reared on post-Gorbachev pop culture, Rubchinskiy also hijacks logos (from Tommy Hilfiger’s to…

Labels We Love > A Bright Spot in Russia Relations

The Coffeeization of Tea

About a decade ago, when cafés and coffee roasters became obsessed with bean origin, ideal milk temperature, and mouthfeel, ordering coffee began to seem like a lifestyle choice—a development tolerable only because the coffee itself got way, way better. Now, we’re seeing the same thing happen to tea, with an explosion of flavors and styles at a quality level that could give Sleepytime night terrors. Sensing the sea change, new-school coffee powerhouses like La Colombe and Intelligentsia (1) have rolled out their own lines of tea. That means it’s time to get into the tea world—but in a way that won’t make you feel like someone who brags about his PBS-totebag collection. The tea that won’t stop trending is matcha (2), the powdered favorite with a heavy dose of antioxidants and…

The Coffeeization of Tea

Christmas at 120 MPH

We all say we want “experience” gifts these days, but too often that means “a hotel-room experience” or a “fitness experience” or an “immersive musical-theater experience.” (Never again!) A real experience allows you to have a crazy amount of fun doing something you don’t feel remotely qualified for. Like, say, hammering a souped-up Mercedes around a racetrack. At racing school, you get to drive someone else’s amazing cars, on a professional track, armed with only a driver’s license and a…well, not a need for speed so much as a hankering. I got behind the wheel at AMG Driving Academy at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, but there are tons of other racing schools across the country. (AMG also has academies in Austin, Northern California, and outside Atlanta.) After listening to a…

Christmas at 120 MPH

The Next Global Food Mecca Is in…Texas?!

• A few years ago, when Linsanity ended in N.Y.C. and Jeremy Lin signed with the Houston Rockets, I made a stupid comment on Twitter that I’d open a Momofuku in Houston just so I could see Lin play. Houston food people did not appreciate my dumb humor. After a handful of visits since then, I’ve realized the joke is on me: I wish I were opening in Houston, because it just might be the next food capital of America. I’ve always wondered where the food in a Blade Runner–like future would appear first and what it would taste like—and I genuinely believe it’s here. Partly that’s due to a demographic reality: By some measures, Houston is the U.S.A.’s most ethnically diverse city (a bunch of New Yorkers just choked on their…

The Next Global Food Mecca Is in…Texas?!

The Ultimate Winter Adventure Guide

1 SNOW There's no better place to start a winter adventure than in the snow. Here are a few ideal destinations for a powder-filled getaway. 2 SUN If you'd rather skip the cold weather, a trip to the tropics can be just as action-packed. These thrilling island escapes will have you loving life. 3 EAT You'll find the most amazing food in the places where you'd least expect it. This selection of remote locales will feed your hunger for excitement. 4 STUFF Don't get stuck in the wild without the right gear. We give you a full rundown of all the equipment you'll need to go globe-trotting. 5 CITY Not everyone can get away for a holiday break, but there are still plenty of ways to stay busy in the city. We make a few suggestions to keep the…

The Ultimate Winter Adventure Guide

Want to Be a Genius? Label Your Toiletries

Creativity Starts with an Obsessively Organized Closet My office is in the dressing room. There are always a lot of people with me when I’m getting ready, and we’re having meetings while I dress. That’s when I’m solving ideas or having creative thoughts. The dressing process has to allow for that, for the story or whatever is happening, so that I can be absorbed in it. So, jeans are in one area, shirts are in another. It’s not like I have a bunch of clothes higgledy-piggledy. It’s the same in the bathroom. At the right hand is the toothbrush, and then it goes to the next thing, the mouthwash. The left hand goes to the brush. And everything is numbered, and there are lots of stickies. I don’t want to sound too…

Want to Be a Genius? Label Your Toiletries

LAW AND DISORDER

EXCLUSIVE: HOW POP CULTURE TURNED ON THE POLICE! IN A PERFECT WORLD, ALL COPS would be like Lennie Briscoe, the trench-coated ’90s folk hero of the Law & Order mother ship. He patrolled the 27th Precinct with rumpled panache and perpetually rolled eyes. His sterling moral character was even nobler contrasted with an appropriately tortured backstory—divorce, alcoholism, murdered daughter. Still, he always had enough spunk to make a cringey dad joke each time he visited a crime scene. (“Three deaths and a kidnapping; I’m only on my second cup of coffee!”) TV cops like Lennie Briscoe are pop-culture comfort food—symbols of honor, of masculinity, of an Eastwoodian America where justice prevails. And this was the year pop culture turned against them. We’ve occasionally seen fictional rogue cops who've diverged from the path…

LAW AND DISORDER

PERSON MOVIE OF INTEREST

West Texas. A convoy of pickup trucks, coming for blood. Our two protagonists, brothers played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster, have robbed a Texas Midlands Bank, late in a crime spree through the depressed vacancy of the contemporary rural Southwest. Because it’s Texas, they’re not the only ones with guns. And so it comes to pass that as they flee their latest job, they’re pursued by a caravan of trucks, filled with armed civilians, processing down the highway in the solemn, courtly tone of a posse setting off into the same territory 100 years ago. Then Foster shoots a machine gun at them. And they all meekly turn their trucks around, bowing to a future they can’t overcome. Hell or High Water is a classic Western, in the sense that…

PERSON MOVIE OF INTEREST

THE VENGEFUL WOMEN THE LIFETIME MOVIE NETWORK

Almost every offering from the Lifetime Movie Network could have the same synopsis in TV Guide: Strong woman defeats awful male antagonist who absolutely deserves his comeuppance. Each one is basically a lowbudget version of J.Lo’s Victimized Woman canon (Enough, The Boy Next Door) that gives away the entire plot in the title. Strong woman finds out her neighbor has a dark, sinister, super-murder-y past? My Neighbor’s Secret, 2009. Strong woman defends adorable adopted daughter against psychotic biological father hell-bent on getting her back? Adopting Terror, 2012. Strong woman cracks a rowboat paddle over the head of her bad boyfriend turned killer? Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? (above, 1996), which I swear is a real title I did not make up. Look, if you want dazzling cinematography, go spend $17.50…

THE VENGEFUL WOMEN THE LIFETIME MOVIE NETWORK

LOCKUP TALES FROM THE PENAL REC ROOM

What shows are popular in prison? Of course, my show, ’cause I was there. Empire. Love & Hip Hop. Dancing with the Stars. And on the weekends: Lifetime. They had a sports room, where only sports were on, and a Spanish room, with Spanishlanguage television. Who’s in charge of the remote? There was somebody whose work assignment was holding on to it. If you didn’t feel like watching television, what was the next best thing to look at? I was there for four seasons—spring, summer, fall, winter—and I have to say, the view was breathtaking. I’ve never seen more beautiful sunsets. Purples and oranges and pinks. I’m tellin’ you, it was incredible! Better than TV? Definitely. I felt like I was gonna get asbestos in there or somethin’, ’cause there was mold. Fresh air is great.…

LOCKUP TALES FROM THE PENAL REC ROOM

WELCOME TO GQ COURT

Offense MTV scheduling Britney Spears to perform after Beyoncé at the 2016 VMAs Complaint Intentional infliction of emotional distress on Britney Spears Relief Ordered The defendant must air two hours of Britney music videos recorded in her prime (1999 to 2003) from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. one Sunday night. Offense Burger King CHEETOS® Chicken Fries Complaint Wanton and willful criminal negligence, for selling consumers a product its own research indicates is “dangerously” cheesy Relief Ordered Every Burger King must close permanently; every CHEETOS® Chicken Fry must be tossed onto a pile of flaming tires. Offense Everybody riding 18-year-old First Daughter Malia Obama’s jock for having fun (dancing, wearing shorts, stimulating the Chicago economy, etc.) at Lollapalooza in July Complaint Criminal trespassing on Malia’s jock Relief Ordered Everybody must remain at least 100 yards from Malia’s jock at all times. HOW TO GET AWAY WITH THIS MANY SHOWS…

WELCOME TO GQ COURT

WELCOME TO HAWLEYWOOD

THE ALBERTAN OIL PRAIRIES east of Calgary are speckled with the sorts of towns that crop up during energy booms—towns that thrive when gas is expensive and suffer when gas is cheap, but no matter the price of gas always look perfectly suitable as the setting for a season of Fargo. In its two seasons, the FX show’s been shot all over these parts, and on a Tuesday in late September, creator and showrunner Noah Hawley is checking out potential locations for a library-slashpolice-station (a highly Fargo-ian conceit in itself) for the season-to-be. The first town he and his crew roll into is called Beiseker. Say it like they’d say it on the show—it’ll serve as a pitch pipe for the voice in your head, to make sure you read the…

WELCOME TO HAWLEYWOOD

WAIT FOR THE DROP: THE YEAR THE SURPRISE ALBUM TOOK OVER MUSIC

Beyoncé Lemonade When & Where: April 23 on HBO and TIDAL What: Sweet revenge in album form Vince’s Verdict: “ ‘Oh, I didn’t know Beyoncé came out’— no one says that. That’s not a thing.” Surprise: Frank Ocean Endless and Blonde When & Where: August 19 and 20 on Apple Music and iTunes What: Everything we ever wanted Vince’s Verdict: “We were waiting for the album for a long time. There’s no reason to make posters.” Surprise: Kanye West The Life of Pablo When & Where: February 14 on TIDAL What: The MSG live-stream-slashfashion-show was a defining moment of 2016. The aftermath was very Kanye: He was tweaking the album even after releasing it. Surprise: Chance the Rapper Coloring Book When & Where: May 12 on Apple Music What: Chance’s gift to humanity Vince’s Verdict: “Chance doesn’t believe in selling music because Chance has a lot of morals and a lot…

WAIT FOR THE DROP: THE YEAR THE SURPRISE ALBUM TOOK OVER MUSIC

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

I KEPT WAKING UP at night, thinking about it. How could you do it? Can you do it? I fully admit it’s a totally risky and partially crazy thing to do. But I thought you could mitigate the risk. That’s when I had the idea for the net. The one I designed was 100 feet by 100 feet, and it would hang from 150-foot-tall cranes. A giant air cylinder would also be hooked to each corner. Just before I impacted, a member of my team would hit a button to release the net from the cranes. It’s like, if you’re gonna catch a raw egg in your hands, you want your hands moving with the egg as you catch it. When we dropped a dummy from the helicopter to test…

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH

2, 190 MILES, 1,102 HOURS, 348,000 CALORIES, AND 1 WORLD RECORD

A LOT OF PEOPLE ask me, “What did you think about on the trail?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” I thought about the bear that went by. I thought about the grass. I thought about my buddies, and making sure that my lawn gets mowed. Crap like that. Where does your mind go? It goes all over the place. Obviously, you have to be in good physical shape. That’s a no-brainer. But the mental aspect of this, even when you run 100 miles, it’s so much between your ears. If I have a bad patch out there, if I’m at a low point where I struggle a little bit or it’s just a nasty climb that never seems to end, I kind of laugh to myself, “All right. Here we…

2, 190 MILES, 1,102 HOURS, 348,000 CALORIES, AND 1 WORLD RECORD

Every Last Thing Karl Meltzer Ate Along the Way

AND 12 lbs. bacon, 20 sausage links, 20 patties, 8 eggs scrambled, 8 fried, 4 omelets, 18 hash browns, 16 crepes, 4 mini breakfast burritos, 3 breakfast sandwiches, 12 pastries, 2 plates of steak and eggs, 2 biscuits with gravy, 8 bananas, 40 strawberries, 6 fig bars, 16 honey buns, 30 glazed doughnuts, 4 bologna sandwiches, 6 large boxes of Nerds, 80 oatmeal cookies, 1 lb. beef jerky, 10 (3 oz.) portions of steak or chicken, 15 brownies, 30 oatmeal pies, 6 whoopie pies, 45 butterscotch Tastykakes, 12 chicken or steak quesadillas, 12 grilled cheeses with meat, 6 Sugar Daddys, 30 Tootsie Rolls, 20 Starbursts, 195 cans of mandarin oranges or peaches, 2 chicken-noodle soups, 4 steak-and-cheese sandwiches, 6 calzones, 4 pulled-pork sandwiches, 30 100 Grand bars, 40 Milky Ways, 4…

Every Last Thing Karl Meltzer Ate Along the Way

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PARENTING

FIVE MONTHS and ten days ago, as I write this, I became a single father. I was half of an amazing parenting team, except we weren’t equals. Michelle was the point person, researcher, planner, and expediter. I was the grunt, office assistant, instruction follower, and urban Sherpa. I did idiot sweeps before we left hotel rooms and ran checklists before we attended school functions and boarded planes. But Michelle put those lists together. She knew how to use my OCD to our little family’s advantage. And her super-mom skills were one brilliant facet of the dark jewel she was—true-crime journalist, online sleuth, tireless finder of half-remembered facts, and crafter of devastating murder prose. I was looking forward to spending my life with the single most original mind I’d ever encountered.…

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PARENTING

THE FEMMEPIRE STRIKES BACK

HOW WOMEN WON 2016 It’s been a rocky year. One of the shittiest in recent memory, what with the Trumpification of the American man. It wouldn’t have taken much for women to shine against such a dim backdrop—but in 2016 it wasn’t even fucking close. In all arenas of public life, the fairer sex was even fairer than usual. More tactful, more courageous, more human. All in all: just better. Gretchen Carlson and the women of Fox News took down the most powerful known predator in media. Simone Biles and Lilly King and the rest of the Olympic ladies outdid the dudes. Beyoncé called out her philandering partner on the national stage and made it art. Elizabeth Warren took Trump to task for his every last assault on dignity. And, of…

THE FEMMEPIRE STRIKES BACK

LOW POINTS IN MALENESS

Brexit Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson tanked their country’s economic future for a political gambit. Lochte in Rio Ryan Lochte tries his hand at the blame game and wins international humiliation. Anthony’s weiner pic Sending dick pics is one thing. Tweeting one is far worse. Having your kid in the photo? Unforgivable. WikiLeaks Julian Assange’s personal grudge against the Clintons is not a reason to abet the Russians. “Grab them by the pussy” Trump hits the lowest point for a nominee since Strom Thurmond and “Segregation forever.” YIKES.…

LOW POINTS IN MALENESS

THE GAWKER STALKER

LET THE RECORD show that Charles Harder does not whiten his teeth, nor does he make any effort to bronze his skin. This is important to point out because in June, a Forbes article described the Beverly Hills lawyer as possessing a “southern California tan and bleach-white smile.” Now, months later, Harder’s still pissed about the characterization. “He made it sound like I’m a big fake,” he fumes. “Where does he get off?! I mean, it just bugs me!” We are at Harder’s law office on Rodeo Drive. His smile is pleasant but hardly blinding; his complexion is healthy but not vaingloriously so. Even in his Hugo Boss suit, surrounded by the carefully curated contemporary art he’s hung on his law firm’s walls, the 47-year-old Harder cuts an unassuming, friendly figure.…

THE GAWKER STALKER

DUDE FINALIY MADE IT

MOTY MEN OF THE YEAR 2016 RYAN REYNOLDS tells Blake Lively we’re headed to the war room. More accurately, he tells her we’re going to the barn, which sits on an old upstate New York farm that functions as Reynolds’s family center and creative headquarters. It was on this estate, which he shares with the very pregnant Lively and their daughter, that he co-wrote the screenplay for Deadpool and where he’s currently working on its sequel with co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. This farm—or Reynolds himself, ass planted on the farm, where he seems to be happiest— is the star around which all bodies of the Reynolds system orbit. So although Lively is due literally any minute, Reynolds has chosen to hold this interview here. THAT HE’S ABLE to have a casual…

DUDE FINALIY MADE IT

TOM FORD’S WILD KINGDOM

TOM FORD thinks about death all day, if you want to know the truth. “I look at a puppy and I think, ‘Oh my God, that puppy’s so beautiful. Oh, it’s just going to be old and die.’ And that makes that puppy even more beautiful. I like flowers; they’re beautiful. I think, ‘Well, they’re going to be dead in three or four days, but my God, aren’t they beautiful now?’ ” He sits in his office, which is nothing but shades of white, black, and stainless steel, and he thinks of death in there, too. Years ago the thumbprints on the steel would have bothered him. Years ago, he tells me, he would have sat up straighter and made sure his suit was falling exactly right. Years ago he gave…

TOM FORD’S WILD KINGDOM

TRAVOLTA HOLDS COURT

JOHN TRAVOLTA arrives for his close-up camera-ready—a state of perfection he has attained without aid or interference from the squadron of makeup artists, fashion people, and on-set Ukrainian seamstress whose job today is to get John Travolta camera-ready for his close-up. He is ready even before anyone lays eyes on him—possibly before his private jet touches down on California concrete (piloted by himself), and certainly by the time he emerges from his luxury SUV (driven by someone else). He is wearing a suit from his own closet. It was made by a man in Italy, Travolta explains to everyone over and over, in a tone that is not so much boastful as quietly in awe of Italy, of the suit, and of the man who made it. Picture time. Six feet two…

TRAVOLTA HOLDS COURT

BLACK ATHLETES MATTER

THE TIME and place couldn’t have been more trivial. A preseason football game between two mediocre teams. A second-string quarterback, following the worst season of his career. A patriotic ritual as routine as it is boring. And the most passive gesture known to nature: sitting. Yet, in August, Colin Kaepernick took these ingredients and created 2016’s most polarizing debate. In a nation where anything and everything is ripe for satire and criticism, who knew the national anthem was off-limits? That by ignoring it you could provoke death threats and cause news anchors to have aneurysms. Kate Upton was up in arms! She called athletes’ sitting down or kneeling during the national anthem “unacceptable.” Rob Lowe: also perturbed. He tweeted that it was unacceptable, but with the proviso that it was only…

BLACK ATHLETES MATTER

CARMELO ANTHONY

IT WASN’T about the gold medal. There was no doubt, really, that they’d win the gold-medal game. The various Dream Teams haven’t lost a game in three Olympics. And it wasn’t even close. But the real triumph was a two-minute video of Carmelo Anthony’s reaction to their win, a cocktail that was equal parts bravado and tears. It had even the most stoic Twitter trolls in their feelings. “Despite everything that we have going on in our country right now, we have to be united,” an emotional Melo said. It was as if he knew that in a year when we suffered through history’s most toxic presidential election, police violence and civil unrest, fake Rio gasstation robberies and a new Carrie Underwood album, we needed a moment of true patriotism.…

JOHN ELWAY CAN’T BE STOPPED

THE EYES. People who try to explain how John Elway does what he does are always talking about his eyes at this or that moment, as if that can explain the uncanny vision he possesses. It seems a little pat to assume that a physical trait can offer clues to a cerebral one. Still, they are striking. Big, blue, bright, boyish eyes, unambiguous and unguarded, which haven’t aged with the rest of his face and somehow seem at odds with his cowboy affability. Often, Elway concentrates so intensely on what he’s looking at that he falls into a trance. This isn’t a metaphor. Whether he’s reading a scouting report or watching tape, he becomes not just fixated but fixed in place: “My wife, my kids, my assistant sometimes have to yell…

JOHN ELWAY CAN’T BE STOPPED

“SOMETIMES you have to give people what they don’t know they want,” says Donald Glover. Before he was the creator and star of FX’s Atlanta, he was kind of a professional friendly face. (See Community, The Martian.) But with Atlanta, we saw something different. “People want the myth of Atlanta, but we didn’t want to give them just that,” Glover says. So instead of a half hour of voluptuous women, Ferraris, and rappers eating lobster platters—which is how every hip-hop song depicts the city— Atlanta is about how everyone else in Atlanta lives. The weirdos and conspiracy theorists. The ones still chasing their ATL dream. And it’s sneakybrilliant— Louie if Louis C.K. were young, black, and not depressed. Like when Glover created a black Justin Bieber—as in, a black actor…

ORLANDO: THE DAY AFTER

THE BULLET IS STILL IN HIS BELLY, but the wound is healing nicely, the abdominal muscles readjusting, strengthening. Three months after Javier was shot in an Orlando nightclub, he can stand and walk and even carry trays in the restaurant. He is getting better. Javier can feel it. An entire summer has passed, a whole season, since that night: dozens and dozens shot dead or wounded, all by one man with two guns in a club called Pulse. Javier spent five nights in the hospital and weeks in a wheelchair. But now he’s back at work, functional, normal again. He’s untangled the worst of the grief and horror, too, combed it into strands he could examine and understand. A therapist had asked Javier questions and listened to his answers and said…

ORLANDO: THE DAY AFTER

THIS IS MY SPIEL, ” Warren Beatty says. “I quote Cocteau: ‘The poem’s never finished. It’s only abandoned.’ ” Eleven of us have packed into a tiny Technicolor screening room in Los Angeles to see Beatty’s new film, Rules Don’t Apply, the first movie he’s starred in and directed since 1998. While he really likes the print we are about to watch (“I think it’s good, see?”), he acknowledges he can’t stop fiddling with it. He made changes just two days ago and may make more. No wonder this screening has been scheduled, then postponed, three different times. He looks good—almost 80, yeah, but limber and loose and comfortable in his skin. Standing there in his jeans and white tennies, with a tan button-front shirt falling open to reveal a white…

AGE: 34 BREAKOUT ROLE: As Naz on HBO’s The Night Of, on which he transforms from a gentle dude in the wrong place at the wrong time into a prison-hardened maybe-murderer WHERE ELSE YOU’VE SEEN HIM: Stealing scenes in Nightcrawler and Jason Bourne WHERE ELSE YOU’VE HEARD HIM: Rapping as Riz MC WHO DIDN’T HEAR HIM: Elderly Brits. DJs thought his track “Post 9/11 Blues” was too controversial, but the song took off on MySpace. SPEAKING OF HEARING HIM... “Riz came to New York,” says The Night Of co-writer and director Steve Zaillian, “and that was the first time I heard his natural English accent. And then I never heard it again. For years.” ON GOING FROM NERD-SCRAWNY TO PRISON-SWOLE TO HEROIN-SWOLE IN ‘THE NIGHT OF’ : “I was working out like a beast the whole time.” HOW…

AGE: 31 BREAKOUT ROLE: As the star of Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta, about a young woman’s journey through marriage, motherhood, and life, generally WHERE ELSE YOU’VE SEEN HER: If you’re from Spain, all over the place. If you’re from the U.S., see above. HOW ALMODÓVAR DESCRIBES HER: “Inexhaustible.” WHICH IS GOOD, BECAUSE HE’ S : “Insatiable.” THE CLANDESTINE PROCESS BY WHICH SHE CAME TO BE H I S LATEST MUSE: “I went to the audition, and they were like, ‘We cannot tell you who the director is, because it’s a secret. And we should respect all this process.’ ” WHICH SHE: Did, coming back three times to audition in completely different styles before learning she’d gotten the part. HER PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH ALMODÓVAR: Unrequited longing. “I didn’t allow myself to dream that one day I would work with him,…

AGE: 35 BREAKOUT ROLE: The quietly forceful Mildred Loving, one half of the couple who push the Supreme Court to protect interracial marriage in Loving HER ACCENT: Irish-ish ISH? Negga was born in Ethiopia and raised in Limerick and London. WHERE ELSE YOU’VE SEEN HER: As a badass gunslinger on Preacher (season two premieres next year) WHERE ‘LOVING’ WRITER-DIRECTOR JEFF NICHOLS HAD SEEN HER: “Jeff had never heard of me.” WHEN NICHOLS KNEW SHE GOT THE PART: “When Ruth said ‘American Civil Liberties Union’ exactly the way that Mildred says it. I gave her a note about her ‘spine.’ I wanted to say something to come off mildly intelligent, like I knew something about the character. As soon as she left the room, I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re done.’ ”…

TREVANTE RHODES

AGE: 26 BREAKOUT ROLE: A drug dealer in the final third of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’s triptych about growing up gay in crackdevastated Miami HOW HIS ‘MOONLIGHT’ AUDITION WENT: “I kicked his ass out,” says Jenkins. WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE. . . A good thing. Jenkins asked him to come back in and read for the character he wound up playing in the film. HOW PLAYING THAT VERY DARK CHARACTER CHANGED RHODES’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE YOUTH OF AMERICA: “I walked around L.A. hating everyone because they were happy. Little kids smiling? I wanted to slap the shit out of them. It was the strangest thing, because I like being personable!” WHAT’S NEXT? Terrence Malick’s Weightless, opposite Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, and Natalie Portman…

TREVANTE RHODES

THE ‘STRANGER THINGS’ KIDS

Noah Schnapp 12 Caleb McLaughli n 15 Gaten Matarazzo 14 Finn Wolfhard 13 Millie Bobby Brown 12 BREAKOUT ROLES: A gang of preadolescent heroes who take down a monster from an alternate dimension on the Duffer Brothers’ 1980s-set sci-fi Netflix hit, Stranger Things HOW THE CREATORS SAY THE KIDS D IFFER FROM ADULT ACTORS: “Winona Ryder and David Harbour aren’t slapping each other across the face as a prank between takes. We’d have to be like, ‘Guys! You’re turning your faces red!’ ” WHEN THEY SAY “GUYS”. . . They’re not talking about Brown. “Millie was seasoned. She’d ask for another take— something adult actors do, but never kids.” HOW BROWN DESCRIBES HER RO L E I N THE GROUP: “I keep the boys in check. I’m quite proper.” WHICH THE BOYS CATEGORIZE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENTLY: McLaughlin: “When she’s here,…

THE ‘STRANGER THINGS’ KIDS

AGE: 19 BREAKOUT ROLE: As a mouthy teenager recovering from his father’s death in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea SHOULDN’T HE BE I N SCHOOL? Who ah you, his fathah? He’s taking a year off from UNCSA to live and work in L.A. HOW HE GOT THE BOSTON ACCENT FOR THE ROLE: “I studied a lot of news reports—local people being interviewed. I also had a dialect coach, who told me to watch ‘Shit Boston Guys Say’ on YouTube.” “SHIT BOSTON GUYS SAY” IMPACT ON HIS SHIT-TALKING SKILLS: “One of the very impressive things is how good he became at verbal sparring,” Lonergan says. “Casey Affleck and I really like to abuse each other—I wanted that for Casey’s and Lucas’s characters.” SHIT-TALKING IMPACT ON THEI R OFFSCREEN FRIENDSHIP: “I was like the younger brother…

THE ‘GET DOWN’ CREW

BREAKOUT ROLES: On the 1970s Bronx-set Netflix series The Get Down, Moore plays DJ and graffiti virtuoso Shaolin, Guardiola is a singer who sheds choir robes for the disco floor, and Smith portrays a quiet protégé who finds voice in his verses. WHERE ELSE YOU’VE SEEN THEM: Moore starred in Dope, and Smith in John Green’s Paper Towns. If you know Guardiola, it’s because you’ve heard her music—this is her first major acting role. ON THE COUNTERINTUITIVENESS OF BAZ LUHRMANN MAKING A SHOW ABOUT THE BIRTH O F HIP-HOP: “Baz approaches the story with so much humility,” Smith says. “I see him stepping back and letting producers like Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, and Nas take the reins.” SPEAKING OF HUMILITY. . . “My agents were like, ‘Yo, this man Baz Luhrmann, he’s done…

THE ‘GET DOWN’ CREW

BETTER TO BERN OUT

IN A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN that was less about hope and change and more about horror and resignation, there was, thankfully, one candidate who provided a dose of inspiration and emotional uplift. Bernie Sanders may not have won his party’s nomination, but the Vermont senator forced Hillary Clinton to embrace his issues. In the process, the self-declared socialist became an unlikely hero to both frustrated workingclass Americans and a new cadre of young voters. Sanders—his hair unkempt, his Brooklyn accent untamed—brought crowds to their feet with wonky calls to reinstate Great Depression–era banking regulations. Undoing the damage wrought on the country by the 2016 campaign won't be easy, but at least this election catapulted to national prominence one politician who gives us a fighting chance. GQ: Thank you for speaking with us, Senator. BERNIE…

BETTER TO BERN OUT

THE CHEF LOSES IT

EVERY MORNING this week, Sean Brock has woken up and vomited. This is not, in and of itself, that unusual. Brock inherited a tricky gag reflex from his father, and the smallest thing can sometimes set him off: picking up after his dog, for instance, or the toothbrush scraping too far back on his tongue. This week, though, the throwing up has been from nerves. In ten days, he’s scheduled to complete the re-invention of his flagship Charleston restaurant, McCrady’s. The first stage, which opened a few weeks ago, was McCrady’s Tavern, a bustling, meat-heavy canteen with a menu inspired by Brock’s collection of 19th-century cookbooks. The second will be housed in this small, rectangular space: 18 seats, 12 of them around a U-shaped counter, and a tasting menu that aspires to…

THE CHEF LOSES IT

FAST FASTER, FASTEST

I SAIN BOLT FAVORS the supine. Given the chance, the feet will go up on something or the ass will scoot down on something. He looks very natural on a couch in the “fourth hour of watching sports on television” position. The first afternoon we meet—in the living room of his home in the verdant hills on the outskirts of Kingston—Usain is splayed on a chaise, powering through his Instagram. He is wearing skinny black jeans, white fashion hightops, a white T-shirt. He’s six feet five inches but extraordinarily well proportioned. Powerful forearms, broad shoulders. His house, comfortable but modest considering he’s one of the wealthiest people in Jamaica, is decorated in the contemporarynationless style, like a luxury condo in Dubai. Lots of black and white, lots of cold tiles.…

FAST FASTER, FASTEST

GUCCIS MAIN MAN

FUCCI HAS BEEN AROUND, in one form or another, since 1921. Its sales go up. Its sales go down. Right now they’re up 17 percent. They’re “Smells Like Teen Spirit” up. They’re up in the way that every article of clothing made by everyone else is subtly sliding Gucci’s way, trying to get in on the action. You walk into a nice store now, any store, and what had been a reliable display of somber blacks and grays—sturdy, angular, calm clothing—has erupted into Gucci’s newly signature riot of color and appliqué animals, butterflies and snakes and tigers, everything opening its mouth to scream. This is all thanks to Alessandro Michele, the label’s newest creative director. Fashion Week in Milan is where the dream gets reflected back to the dreamer. In the…

GUCCIS MAIN MAN

“I’M FROM A relatively small town and a rural place, and I think you see that in my hands and my face,” Joel Edgerton says. It’s this earthbound quality that appealed to director Jeff Nichols, who cast Edgerton in two 2016 movies, Midnight Special and Loving— a certain roughhewn stoicism, a quiet openness to the world. In Midnight Special, Edgerton plays a cop caught up in something beyond his understanding; in Loving, he’s a man whose marriage to a black woman (played by Ruth Negga; see page 200) results in a precedentestablishing 1960s Supreme Court case out of Virginia. For all its social import, Loving is an understated, almost serene movie—a film about a marriage that survives—shorn of the usual histrionic moments we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in period dramas. “In Hollywood,…

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY LIFE OF THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE

Really, I’m normal. A little highly strung, maybe. But normal. But so much has been written about me and people never know what’s right and what’s wrong. I’d rather let them stay confused. —PRINCE, 2004 COREY TOLLEFSON(Minneapolis-based entrepreneur and fan; attended events at Paisley Park for over 20 years): The thing that was funny was you never saw Prince [first], you smelled him. He always smelled like lavender. And you knew when he was there because you’d turn around and go, “Holy shit, I smell Prince.” And then, ten seconds later, you’d see him. KANDACE SPRINGS(singer; befriended by Prince via Twitter after he discovered her cover of a Sam Smith song online in 2014): He smelled like lavender. Dude, I’m not even kidding you. Overtime. My sister burns lavender in my house…

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY LIFE OF THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE

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