Well, it seems that Adam Driver is on his way to heartthrob status (if he wasn’t there already). The Girls star is in the Daniel Radcliffe/Zoe Kazan movie What If and he’s also nabbed the September cover of GQ.
In the accompanying article by Jessica Pressler – which pitches Driver as “A whole new breed of leading man” – directors rave about Driver. Rave:
“To me, Girls announced this wholly new and surprising kind of actor,” says Levy, who came away from his initial coffee date with Driver with what sounds like a full-blown man crush. “The way he moves, talks, eats, navigates the world,” he gushes. “It’s really authentic. Adam is a fucking man.“
At a time when nearly every industry is trying to commodify authenticity—McDonald’s artisan burger, anyone?—Hollywood has lagged. To Levy and others, Driver is a welcome course correction from the parade of blue-eyed Brad Pitt types (your Chris Hemsworths, your Chris Pines). His ripped physique is comparable to today’s action heroes’, but beneath his pecs there is the suggestion of a brain, a heart, a soul. Driver’s electric intensity and his intriguing backstory suggest that this is a man who has Seen Things. “He’s a real person,” says Baumbach.
But Driver is still grounded in some dark reality:
“Here’s the thing,” he says, and pauses to take a bite of a hamburger. “Life’s shitty, and we’re all gonna die. You have friends, and they die. You have a disease, someone you care about has a disease, Wall Street people are scamming everyone, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. That’s what we’re surrounded by all the time. We don’t understand why we’re here, no one’s giving us an answer, religion is vague, your parents can’t help because they’re just people, and it’s all terrible, and there’s no meaning to anything. What a terrible thing to process! Every. Day. And then you go to sleep. But then sometimes,” he says, leaning forward, “things can suspend themselves for like a minute, and then every once in a while there’s something where you find a connection.”
There are also glamour shots (though Driver kind of makes fun of fashion in this video, also for GQ). The caption on this photo reads: “These are the widest pants we’ve shown in GQ in years. But the sweatshirt and coat are as formfitting as ever.”
Images via Paola Kudacki/GQ
Join the discussion...