Vanity Fair Italy,
issue # 23 - 12.06.2013
ZACHARY QUINTO
My name is GAY
On Star Trek he’s Spock, one that “run, fight and love a woman: all very heterosexual”. In real life, he came out two years ago. And, now that “people ask for me” and he worked with Robert Redford, he has something to say to Rupert Everett
I can’t avoid it, as soon as i meet Zachary Quinto i say hi to him Star Trek style. He laugh and tell me i’ve to practice, i’m not enough laid-back. More Fantozzi style “my fingers get intertwined” than Spock, tbh. Which, coming from Spock himself, crushes all my spatial ambitions. Without the pointy ears of his character and the lunar look of the long-live syfi saga, Zachary is a cute 37 year old man with thick eyebrows and an articulated talk.
We met during the Cannes Film Festival, which he attended with a movie where he doesn’t act in it, All Is Lost with Robert Redford. It’s the second movie made by the production company he co-created and that’s called Before The Door. The first movie they signed was the interesting Margin Call with Kevin Spacey. As producer, and with 747k followers on twitter, he participated in a Tweet Talk organized by Giorgio Armani on the theme Cinema and Fashion. He just left behind him a five weeks promo tour, from Sydney to Moscow, to London for the premier of Star Trek - Into Darkness, and he was gettin’ ready to go back in the United States where there’s the rehearsals for The Glass Menagerie by Tenneessee Williams that are waiting for him. And also his partner, actor and singer Jonathan Groff.
Yes, because Zachary - who plays a gay character on American Horror Story- is gay too in real life and it’s something we can talk about it. It’s not a gossip: he said it himself, in 2011. Which is a rarity, for an Hollywood actor, mostly when he’s part of a commercial and global success like Star Trek.
It happened with an interview for the New York Magazine, two years after the first Star Trek. What were you thinking?
“I was thinking about it for a while, and i knew that sooner or later i would have done it. But i didn’t talk about it with anyone, not even my mother. I’ve arrived at the interview knowing i wanted to do it. The final push was a news story, the suicide of a young gay boy harassed by the school’s bullies.”
After that, how did you felt?
“Better. From that moment on i could live truthfully both inside and outside my work life, there were no veils to obfuscate who i am, there is no wasted energy used to hide something that doesn’t need to stay hidden.”
Would you say that your coming out is an act of courage?
“Mostly, it was a necessary act for me. I’m happy to live in a time where we are free to do a statement like that. It’s a gift, and i opened the box. Not opening it would have meant to watch from a corner, to choose irrelevance.”
Producer of festival movies, theater actor, lead character in popular movies. How do you keep all of this together?
“Also thank to my coming out. Authenticity allows creative freedom. As soon as i signed for the first Star Trek, i knew that it was time to do something constructive, and i founded the production company. The popularity that comes from Star Trek is a solid platform from which i can give birth to other projects. I don’t wanna wait for the studios to decide for me who i have to be, what i have to do.”
How did you involve Robert Redford in All Is Lost, extreme thriller, with him as the only character in the middle of the sea?
“I’ve read an interview where i said that he would have liked to go back acting. We sent him the script and here we are. And I’ve to confess that finding the founding was easier than you could think.”
I’m admired by your lucidity and straightforwardness but, i’m sorry, i’m still thinking about Rupert Everett, the first one to coming out in the movie business. He keep saying he regret it.
“I know. It’s his problem, of his generation, of the time when he grew up and the historical moment when he came out. I’m sad when i read that he regrets it. There’s nothing to regret. I respect Rupert’s feelings, but for me i feel the responsibility to say who i am. It’s a time of changes: i wanna be part of it.”
Rupert Everett claim that the coming out ruined his career.
“It’s not my case. It hasn’t limited me before, it will not do it now and i will do everything i can for it to not limit anyone who will decide to come out. The world is full of people that wants to work with me and that respect me without caring about the gender of the person who i sleep with.”
If an heterosexual actor play a gay character people says “he’s so good”, but if it’s a gay actor that wants to play a straight man or a superhero they said “it’s not believable”.
“Nonsense. Clichés of people with a view limited by the fear and a closed mind. And, sorry, but my case speak for itself. In Star Trek Spock runs, fights and has a relationship with a women. It’s all very heterosexual. Yet I am Spock.”
Magic Mike cast;
Vanity Fair Italy - issue #38, 09.26.2012
Vanity Fair Italy,
issue #36 - 09.12.2012
JEREMY RENNER:
I AM NOT SCARED (OF SHARKS)
Stay away from him: not only he’s stressed out, but he’s also someone that doesn’t back off when it’s time to fight (both on set, where he doesn’t want stuntmen, that in bars: the drunk man who was annoying him knows it well). Here however, the main actor of The Bourne Legacy, also tell us his fears. And how, with a dive, has overcome his fears.
“Sorry, i’m voiceless”. While saying that he put a mint candy in his mouth and take a big breath.
“Don’t forget to breath. That’s my philosophy”.
This interview with Jeremy Renner haven’t been organized to chat about philosophy and mint candies (although we’ll come back on that) but about The Bourne Legacy. The actor in fact, from september 7th, with the last chapter, the first without Matt Damon, of the Jason Bourne saga. He play Aaron Cross, an agent that work for a secret program: the leaders has decided to close it by killing everyone involved in it, Cross included, that will make the plan hard to resolve. On paper it’s the fourth movie of Jason Bourne’s saga that here, however, here it’s just a name mentioned from time to time. The main actor is him, the philosopher Jeremy Renner, the one that adds: “The act of breathing does not involve conscience, it’s a reflex. But if you make it become a conscious thought (while saying this he takes a long deep breath, ndr) more oxygen enters in your blood and relieves stress”.
So you’re stressed?
“I get stressed easily, yes. Stress is the reaction to ancestral fear”.
And Jeremy Renner - the bomb’s deminer from Iraq in The Hurt Locker and the fighter along superheroes on The Avengers - is afraid? Of what?
“Of the things i don’t know. So i always try to knows them”.
For example?
“Sharks once terrified me. Now they still scares me, but i’ve done a diving course, i’ve swim with them, i’ve learnt to knew them. I still don’t like them very much, but i’m not terrified like before”.
There are people that loves fears because of the adrenaline rush that comes with it.
“Me and fear does not get along well, we never get along. And with time the things didn’t got better. As a child I was not particularly scary but, growing up, you learn to be scared. Parents, friends, teachers shove it down to you”.
Action movies are an antidote to real fear?
“That is actually a way to stay in a good shape. Because you can’t fake while fighting, there’s nothing worse than a fake punch”.
No stuntmen, right?
“I like to fight. It’s based on your strenght and on intuition”.
In this movie you also fight against a wolf. Or it was CGI?
“No CGI, it was a real wolf”.
You never get tired?
“I’ve repeated some scenes even 20 times, but i’m sure that most of the times the director choosed the second take, so the other 18 were useless”.
Did you prepare yourself for that?
“A lot, even five hours per day. One of stretching, two and half of fighting, then gym for another hour and half. In the evenings i crashed in bed, aching”.
You take your work very seriously.
“I point to the top, that doesn’t mean i always get to that, but i just need to try. You always need good reasons for everything you do”.
Philosophy, again.
“It’s my father’s thought: he had a big influence in my life, especially now, that i’m gettin’ old”.
So your father is a philosopher, other than your acting teacher.
“ My father studied theology”.
Do you believe in God?
“No, but i’ve explored all the most important religions. I ask myself why there are so many different churches when the beliefs in the end are so similar”.
And so a lot of religion’s wars.
“Violence to defend what you believe in. Absurd”.
And violence in movies? That doesn’t annoy you? In Bourne Legacy there’s a lot of it.
“If violence help you tells a story, i’ve no problem with it”.
By the way, you recently told that you got into a bar fight.
“I don’t like to talk about my private life, but i can explain what happened. I didn’t get into a fight since second grade. The only reasons i do it is for defend myself or my family. That time a drunk man had targeted my sister. I tried everything to go away but when i wasn’t able to prevent the situation from degenerating, i reacted, i did what i thought it was right for my family to be protected”.
So, it is important to be able to defend themselves.
“Learning how to defend themselves, today, is important and there are some disciplines that teach you well how to do it”.
You don’t like to talk about your private life. How do you adjust your being famous with the defence of your privacy?
“I don’t adjust. I don’t feel that famous even if i know that i’m a public person”.
So what do you do? You don’t think to be a celebrity after two oscar nominations?
“No, it’s impossible, the others reminds you of that constantly”.
There are no rumors about you around.
“Being able to not make the others talk about you is hard. You have to pay attention on what you say, at the insidious questions. Private life is private. Why should it be called like that if not?”.
What do you search in friendship?
“Common interests, sense of humor, lightness”.
And in love?
“Didn’t i just say that i don’t want to talk about my private life, did I?”.
You did a lot of works before becoming an actor, even the interior designer and the make up artist. A tip on both?
“Make up: take care of your eyebrows, eyelashes and lips. Desing: high ceilings”.
Why?
“High ceilings are a psychological trick, they doesn’t make you feel oppressed even if in a small room”.
Why the passion for make up?
“It’s born in theatre, when i’ve done prose and had to do my own makeup before going on stage. Then i’ve been asked to do it as job and I said yes. The face is like a canvas, doing make up is a creative work. It was funny to get a lot of money to apply foundation, gloss and eye shadows to pretty girls”.
Applying the makeup is an intimate act, the makeup artist and the person that is being put the makeup on are so close. What did you learn from that experience?
“That breath mints are important”.
Vanity Fair Italy,
issue #36 - 09.12.2012
ROBBIE WILLIAMS:
SCARED TO BE HAPPY
First episode: “I just wanted to take drugs and drink”. Second episode: “The life I had it looked like it had no sense”. Third episode (the actual one, between his fashion debut and the comeback album): “I have a wife, we’re about to have a daughter. I feel safe, it’s a good feeling.”
Why, then, this feeling scares him?
It’s at about half of the interview that Robbie Williams give me - i don’t know how much consciously - one of the best definitions of marriage that i’ve ever heard. It’s when he talks about the start of his relationship with Ayda Field, the american model that became his wife and that in a few days will make him become father of a daughter. “She always said that i had a lot of style, she always complimented me for how i dressed up. Now she criticize me: ’Why do you wear that sweater? Wear this instead!’ “.
It’s the bonus effect, he says, the one that “for the first few years everything is given and forgiven and everything is wonderful, after that the problems rises”.
He’s obviously joking, something he will do the entire time of our chat. He and Ayda got married in 2010: as well as being technically still in the honeymoon phase, they’re about to have they’re first daughter (and maybe, when you’ll read this interview, the event could be already happened).
Even if huge, this is not the only news. There’s the new album: after the temporary reunion with the Take That, in november Robbie will release his ninth solo album, a very secret project that we can’t yet talk, but that is anticipated by a single, Vertigo, with a video shot last week in the streets of London. And then there’s the fashion brand Jack Farrell: a collection - designed by Ben Dickens, designer for Burberry - that Robbie really cares about and that he named after his grandad, a person with a big presence in his life, as well as in his right wrist, as a tattoo. It doesn’t take a lot of psychology to understand that, with a daughter coming soon, having a big project dedicated at his favourite ancestor it’s like closing a symbolic circle.
How have been the past months, being with your pregnant wife?
“I gained weight! Isn’t it incredible, is it?! The one that has to eat for two it’s her, but i gained a bit of weight too. Maybe it’s empathy. I’ve read that it happens often: husbands have the same symptoms of their wives, during the pregnancy”.
Are you telling me that you had morning sickness? Back pain?
“Yes, yes, everything. If she had morning sickness, i had them too. If she was in a bad mood, so was i. This is how we spent the first three months”.
Did you also went to the prenatal course?
“Sure, but when the moment will come my presence, on practical terms, will be useless. You know, i’ve problems with remembering informations, i forget everything, so even those three or four basic notions i’m sure will be forgotten the moment before i need them or i will not be able to apply them. Let’s say that my presence at the course helped me gain some ‘hubby points’. I have no idea how good i am at gettin’ these ‘hubby points’ tho”.
So you will be in the delivery room?
“I don’t think i can miss that. When i was born, my father stayed at the pub to drink, because that’s where the men waited for the birth of their children. Now if you talk about it, like i did, with everyone who had a child in the last 15 years, they don’t stop saying how magic and wonderful that moment is, and that he will not have miss that for any reason”.
You do not feel very confident about the miracle of fatherhood.
“The fact is that i don’t feel all this transport, these teary eyes and altruism that i see in the others. But i rely a lot in the nature: I’m sure that at the appropriate time the fatherhood gene will spark into me too, and it will help me realize that now, in the world, there is a tiny little person that need me 24/7”.
Do you think you will raise your daughter in Los Angeles or England?
“We haven’t decided yet. After 10 years of Los Angeles i would like to change, to live in a town near the sea. I know, technically LA is that too, but in reality most of the time you don’t realize that”.
Maybe you could buy an island.
“For me it would be amazing: everything i need is wifi and the sport channel. My wife has a constant need to buy shoes, of the manicure and clothes by Stella McCartney. Well, if i was the one to own the only boutique of the island, the money will be coming back in my pocket…”.
At this point Robbie start talking of when his wife and his assistant Josie met Stella McCartney and, to describe her excitement, he says: “Like when teenagers met me when i was with the Take That”. So i ask him if it has ever happened to him to be starstruck in front of someone. He starts talking about when, in the backstage of a concert of the U2, he saw Brad Pitt and got starstruck: “I even told him a lie: since i had just seen that Guy Ritchie’s movie in which he play a gypsy (Snatch, ndr), i told him that my family had gypsy origins. And it’s not true!” And what did he say? “Nothing, he nodded in a cool way. I think he was smoked, even smoked he could see i was a weird guy”. Josie intervenes: maybe it’s better to go back talking about Jack Farrell.
Tell me about your grandad: why did you dedicate this collection to him?
“He was the first male reference of my life, and the best dress person of his town. What i am now it’s because of him. I think he was scared by the influence that the women in our family could have had on me: so, to avoid the risk of me being gay, he teached me boxe”.
Did he get the chance to see you…
“.. being gay?”.
I meant famous.
“No, he died when i was six years old. But about the gay thing he was wrong”.
For what it’s worth: i never believed that rumor.
“Thanks, but if you go on Google “Robbie Williams gay” is the second result after “Robbie Williams Angel”. Incredible, right?!
Do you think that Jack would have been happy to know that you’re a pop star?
“Jack would have not choose this job for me”.
But did you choose it? Or it was inevitable? I mean: Robbie Williams could have really became someone else? A soccer player, maybe?
“Sadly no, i’m not that good. The truth is that i’ve never been good at anything. In school i’ve never showed a talent or inclination for any kind of subject, scientific or humanistic. All that i knew and wanted to do, already then, was to perform”.
What did mean for your grandfather to be a real man? And what it means now, especially for you?
“At that time it was all black or white, you had to be tough, work hard and never complain. I don’t know about Italy, but in England now even for guys it’s all ‘uh, don’t say that, you hurt my feelings’ (he says it in a feminine voice, ndr)”.
According to your grandfather’s canon, would you pass the real man test?
“I’m not so sure of that. I complain a lot. And now we all are metrosexual, especially in the showbusiness. But i’ve to say a big thank you to him: had it not been for his teaching I would never come out of the many situations where I found myself into in the last 15 years”.
Are you talking about drugs and alcohol?
“There was a time when all i wanted to do was take drugs, drink, write songs and perform. Now i’m almost 40, i have a wife, and we’re about to have a daughter. I feel safe, and it’s a good feeling, I do not deny it. But, at the same time, it scares me a lot”.
Security scares you?
“I am an anarchic, one that has always lived at 10000 km/h: i don’t know if i’m suited for the calm that comes from happiness. Maybe, i’m just someone that can’t be happy, because whatever he has he will always miss the opposite”.
Do you any regret, something that you would not do if you were able to go back?
“There was a moment when i was sure to be tired of being a pop star because what i was doing looked stupid, superficial and meaningless for me. I was sure that i wanted to stop and i started to sabotage my career. Of course it wasn’t true that i was tired and the regret that i have is that i didn’t understood that, in that moment. I know a little of myself, as you can see”.
Becoming a father will change your life. Do you think your music will change too?
“This album it has been written even before my daughter was conceived, butthe future i don’t know, maybe yes. The truth is that it’s hard for me to sing about love: for the others is easy, i know, but for me it feels weird”.
Angels is still one of the most played song at weddings. Did you already have some ideas for a songs for christenings?
“I have a track in mind where i list to my daughter all the people that she will meet in her life. The chorus says: ‘These people are idiots’ (sings, ndr). Yes, i wanna write a song called Idiots”.
This baby will have a lot of fun with you has a father.
“I hope so and i want that. Right now i’m just really scared, but i want to build that bond, i wanna be there for her, i wanna love her. I want it”.
Vanity Fair Italy,
issue #36 - 09.12.2012
DAD, LAY ON MY HAND
He was SPARTACUS, the invincible and brave warrior of the tv. The same courage he had fighting the disease that, one year ago, took him away and in telling that pain in a movie, shot for those who suffer like him. Today his wife Vashti remember those last instants, until she was the one to “let him go”. To see him coming back flying to his son .
“This is the story of a butterfly. A beautiful butterfly, the coloured ones, that when they’re flying they seems to follow a music that they only hear. Then, one day, one beaks a wing, and despite continuing to be the most beautiful, is no longer able to fly. It decides to lay on it favourite flower, and soon after dies”.
This is how Andy Whitfield, star of the first season of Spartacus: Blood & Sand, has explained to his children Jesse and Indigo his fight with the non-Hodgkin lymphoma and his death. “Everytime you see a butterfly, think about me”, he said. On september 12th 2012, at 39 years old, Andy passed away in his home in Sydney, and since that day Jessie and Indigo haven’t miss yet a butterfly. “Hi, daddy” they say every time, and Vashti, Andy’s wife, everytime smile. She do it on skype too, in a video chat that has something mystical about it, in which she tell me how you live after the “greatest pain”, and of Be Here Now, the documentary about the last months of his husband’s life that we’ll see in 2013, wanted by him and shot by Lilibet Foster. “We posted the trailer on Kickstarter.com and a lot of people have backed the project, helping us to realize Andy’s dream. Nine months later, we was able to raise the $ 200 thousand that was needed to finish the documentary.”
Vashti is 39 years old and she’s a life coach, she ‘teach how to live’. She smiles constantly, she never stand still, she move her head from right to left to show me how beautiful his the view from the window behind her. She’s on vacation in the north of Wales, where Andy is born, to stay for a while with her in-laws that haven’t seen since last year. Every time she says the word ‘death’ i jump a little, and she says a lot. Because I, that to the death i would say to die, have always watched with suspicion to the ones that ‘I, instead, have accepted it’. Then I met Vashti Withfield, and i’ve changed my mind.
Vashti, how do you live after the >?
“You learn how to live again. Andy’s death teached me that there’s nothing to fear. The worst thing has happend, i told myself: ‘You can either despair or take life by it balls’. I choose the second one, and now i live for two: for myself and for him”.
What do you miss the most about Andy?
“I miss my best friend. When we reached the $200’000 for Be Here Now, the only thing i wanted to do was calling him. I miss seeing him lying in bed, next to me. Him, that needed to caress my head to fall asleep. He did it every night, for 13 years”.
And the kids?
“Indigo is too young, she’s 5, and all she does is searching for butterflies and greet them. For Jesse it’s a whole different story: he’s 7, he miss his dad in a ‘grown up’ way. For us, during the illness, it always has been important that the kid understood what was happening. They saw us crying, so Jess, when he’s sad, feels free to do it too”.
What is helping you?
“Writing my blog, maybemcqueen.com. I write and I feel better: it’s like being on therapy».
Why MaybeMcQueen?
“Andy loved Steve McQueen. Few years ago he heard about a movie about McQueen’s life and he dreamed of playing him. Then i say to myself: maybe you can be a McQueen, maybe not, that doesn’t matter. What it does, is that you dreamed about it”.
Do you stay in the Sydney’s house where you lived with Andy?
“Yes, every centimeter talk about him”.
Did you kept his belongings?
“Almost nothing: they’re objects, i don’t need them. I only kept his favorite motorbike, his helmet, his leather jacket and five t shirts, that tells our story, even if only Jesse uses them. When he’s sad and misses his dad i making go to bed wearing one of Andy’s t shirts, so he feel him closer”.
Do you feel him close?
“I always have the feeling that he’s with us. We went to an exhibition where there was a room full of butterflies. As soon as we were inside Jesse yelled: “Wow, dad is everywhere”. When we were about to leave, he started crying and, between the sobs, he said: “C’mon dad, lay on my hand”, and a butterfly flies on his finger. We were really happy”.
When did you decided to do the documentary?
“When the cancer came back, september 2010. Andy was about to start season two of Spartacus when he found out that the lymphoma, that he thought he defeated three months before, was back in his body. The same day of that bad news, we went to get the Be Here Now tattoo and he knew he had to do something, that all that pain was happening for a reason. With this movie he wanted to help who is having a similar experience”.
The troupe was always there?
“They were there in the most important moments, otherwise they were there every two days. Even in India, where Andy has tried some non-traditional medicine”.
Was Andy scared of death?
“Yes, sometimes. He didn’t want to leave us alone. Even before dying, when he was on a semi-coma, he was fighting to stay here, looking for my ‘approval’ to pass away”.
And you gave it to him?
“Yes, 24 hours before he died I told him: “Andy, go. Love, don’t worry, you can go”. And he did it”.
How it was being the wife of a famous actor?
“Sometimes difficult. The fact that I wasn’t as beautiful as Andy was, sometimes, made me felt uncomfortable. After one of our red carpet, on the web, there was a lot of terrible comments. I was used to people thinking that i wasn’t enought for Andy. Now, all that makes me smile, because the most important thing is that for Andy i was the most beautiful of all”.
Do you think you will love again?
“I’m sure about it: one day i will love another man, i’m only 39 years old. Now i don’t think about it, it’s too soon, but i know that Andy would want that for me”.
Have you ever talk about it with him?
“No, during the illness our attention was focused on healing, this was the last of our problems”.
How was Andy?
“He was the best. He didn’t have anything of the Hollywood’s actor type, he had nothing to do with that world. it has never gone to his head, maybe because he became successful “later”, only after Spartacus. he was still the boy with the engineering degree that i met while on vacation in India, the one that walked barefoot and had a passion for photography”.
Do you still watch Spartacus?
“Yes, sometimes. Liam McIntyre, the actor that has replaced Andy, is very good, he liked him too. Andy loved with all his heart that character”.
What would Andy say to you, today?
“He would be happy for the result of Be Here Now. And he would tell me: “hey baby, we did it. We did it” “.
Liam McIntyre for Vanity Fair Italy.
Issue #20 05.23.2012
TODAY SPARTACUS YESTERDAY PUDDING
It took 20 more kg, four months of gym and a former military as personal trainer. But, in the end, this skinny unknown actor was able to become the heir of the “first gladiator”. Also thanks to a secret weapon: his girlfriend.
His story should be told at the motivational courses, the ones where a trainer yell in your face that if you want to do something you can do it. Because with Liam McIntyre this method has worked. And you can see at a glance. This man trapped into a mass of muscles was indeed, since last year, a skinny and emaciated guy. Since when at his horizon of unknown australian actor, if you exclude a part in The Pacific by Spielberg, it has appeared the big occasion: the role of Spartacus in the tv show that tells the story of gladiator. So, thanks to crazy workouts and a high-protein diet, his body morphed into that mountain of manliness that we see in the new season, Spartacus: Vengeance, that will air on Sky Uno HD from May 16 on prime time.
In reality, for Liam McIntyre, the role has been difficult on both a physical and a psychological level. His entry in the show is bound to the tragic story of Andy Whitfield, the beloved actor who had bought Spartacus to the success and that after a disease has died between the tears of the fans. “Taking his role was a big responsibility. He was an amazing man, before leaving, he gave me his blessing”. tells Liam from New Zealand, where he’s filming the 3rd season of Spartacus.
Did you know him, Whitfield?
“We was planning to meet but it hasn’t happened. He wrote me some emails to encourage me: it was a beautiful gesture, as well as moving.”
Did you feared the comparisons with him?
“I expected the comparisons and maybe i wanted them too. As a fan of Spartacus, i would have been critical too with the new character. I never wanted to mimics Andy’s Spartacus. I tried to capture the same humanity of the character that he played so well.“
How have you been chosen [for the role]?
“It was a long and exhausting process. It took four months from the first audition to the definitive yes: the strangest four months of my life.”
Why, what happened?
“I weighed 20 kg less than now because of a movie that i had just finished filming, and i suddenly find myself in NZ lifting weights and trying to build up muscles. Every week my trainers took a picture of me and sent it to the producers that wanted to see if i was making progresses.”
A nightmare.
“To train me there was a former military man that yelled at me phrases like Now let’s see what you can do!>. It was surreal, but in the end i’ve decided that i would have never give up at the biggest opportunity oof my life.”
Do you like your body now?
“I feel like my girlfriend: there are days when i look at myself in the mirror and i feel beautiful, and other when i see myself fat. Now i have a better understanding of women”
Your girlfriend is the musical actress Erin Hasan. How do you two have met?
“She was the coworker of a friend of mine, they worked in a videogame’s store.I’m lucky: she’s perfect.”
Really?
“She even has the most beautiful voice i ever heard.”
Will you two get married?
“I hope so, but i can’t tell you, i wouldn’t want that she found out about if from Vanity Fair. She should found out from me, i guess.”
How did you became an actor?
“Because of Shakespeare. I was in Ireland to study Economy when a director asked me to play a little role in a comedy. And then i found out that it was the main role in Measure for Measure: he tricked me. But i liked it, so i continued.”
And now you’re Spartacus.
“He’s the man that i would like to be: one who in life’s difficulties can make a difference. Courageous, but not perfect.”
Are you courageous?
“I don’t know how much, but for sure less than my mother, that’s the most brave person that i know. She raised me alone, after the separation from my father. And she’s fighting cancer from years. To play Spartacus I am inspired by her, she’s so proud to have a gladiator has son.”
A famous son. Are you gettin’ used to this?
“Not so much. It’s all so strange. It’s weird to go to Time Square and see myself on this building-size poster.”
“BLACK PANTS”
Photoshoot by Adriano Russo for Vanity Fair Italy (Issue #17 05.02.2012)
Leather Vest: Neil Barrett
Leather Pants: Stefanel
Studded Shoulder Pad: Jorge D’Glamour Santos - Strass Creations
Sunglasses: A - Morir
Ankle Boots: Giuseppe Zanotti Design
Vanity Fair Italy.
Issue #17 05.02.2012
Photo of Andrej Pejic in an interview with photographer Bettina Rheims about her last work, “Gender Studies”.
Look who’s again in Vanity Fair Italy!
(Issue #6 - 02.15.2012)
Matt Bomer for Vanity Fair Italy.
(issue #5 - 02.08.2012)
————
YOU MUST HAVE STYLE EVEN TO STEAL
For the role of a repented con man, Matt Bomer has worked hard: he learnt how to open doors without using keys and to dress “all’italiana” (italian style). He likes to talk about his teachers. Of other things, not so much…
Maybe Matt Bomer has already been in Italy again. When I met him in New York, a few months ago, to talk about his series White Collar, he’d just come back from Rome: “My first time in Italy. I enjoyed myself so much and i absolutely want to come back. But next time Tuscany.”
An unusual hint to his private life that Bomer, 34 years old, born in Texas, fiercely defends always avoiding to confirm his relationship with his partner, maybe husband, Simon Halls and their 3 kids.
Like an italian, Bomer has a sense for style. Like the character he plays, Neal Caffrey, a former con man turned into FBI consultant, endowed with a Mad Man’s style wardrobe.
How would you describe your character?
“Neal is like a five years old kid. He’s smart, but he doesn’t control his impulses: if he sees something that he wants, he’d do anything to get it”.
Starting from dresses.
“He formed his identity around characters like Cary Grant on To Catch a Thief. As an actor, it helps me that Neal has such a peculiar style. To get ready for the role i’ve watched a lot of video of Dean Martin. This season we choose to use a lot of grey, because it suits well the mood of the character, more than ever torn between going back to be a criminal or keep working with the FBI”.
You also worked with a con man. What did you learn?
“Yeah, he’s a former con man too. He taught me some tricks. For example, how to steal a wallet from a pocket, or how to pick a lock”.
Have you ever practiced off the set?
“Just once when i happened to lock myself out of the house”.
Michael Fassbender for Vanity Fair Italy.
Issue #02, 01.18.2012
SHOW THE MUSCLES, DETECTIVE
A challenge to the chest between the protagonists of Hawaii 5-0 (and not only them)
One minimize: “Me, sexy?! But if in the top 40 of the hottest men i was number 41st”. The other one - that got a full page on People’s issue dedicate to the best abs - is enjoying his popularity by signing chests and having fun with undestatements: single father, he shows up in public with Dusty, that’s not a woman but a dog. The first one is Scott Caan: metrically disadvantaged sex symbol (1,65 mt), but worthy of Big Jim if you watch him from the chest up, has the handicap of the hair with highlights but the plus of a father that have made the history of the cinema (James, you have seen him in The Godfather), The second one is Alex O’Loughlin, 35 years like the buddy with whom he divide - as main characters - the set of Hawaii 5-0, airing on AXN from January 10th. In the tv show - inspired by the Hawaii Five-0 that aired in 1968, and played by James MacArthur and Jack Lord- they are Danno Williams and Steve McGarrett, detective of a special task-force that run-swim-shot between the natural wonders of the hawaian location. Alex, before moving here, was being defeated in the last specimen by Daniel Craig for the part of James Bond,but he had co-starred with Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan. Scott, the last year, got a nomination at the Golden Globes for H50. Between the two of them, that in the show attends the best villages of hawaii and invents new cocktails, who do you choose? Before you decide, consider that: Caan loves to surf and, between the takes, he doesn’t miss a waves, instead O’Loughlin loves red wine and knows the best restaurants in Honolulu.
ALEX O’LOUGHLIN
Born in Australia, he grew up climbing mountains and motorcycles racing. He plays the guitar and kung fu. In the movie he falled for Jennifer Lopez, in real life for Holly Valance. In the TV show he is Steve McGarrett.
LOOK: 8 - PECS: 7 - ABS: 9
TOTAL: 24
JACK LORD (1920-1998) The first McGarrett was 2cm smaller of O’Loughlin (1,83 instead of 1,85cm) but the body, despite the hawaian weather (where he worked and died), he has never shown: his detective wouldn’t give up jacket and tie. At the theatre he played Bond once: Dr No.
SCOTT CAAN
He’s the son of James, actor, and Sheila Ryan, former model and actress. He has a cowboy walk, loves the surf and was a rapper. His real love, however, is the cinema, even as director. In the TV show he is Danno Williams.
LOOK: 7 - PECS: 8 - ABS: 7
TOTAL: 22
JAMES MACARTHUR
(1937-2010). Basket, football, baseball: the Danno of Hawaii Five-0 had the body of someone who grew the muscles on the field. Born in Los Angeles, the cinema was his destiny, since The Light in the Forest. In Hawaii, besides shooting the show, he married is second (and penultimate) wife.
