Speaking over the phone from Rome on a Sunday afternoon shooting break, the four-time Academy Award nominee sounds amiable and reflective, looking ahead to an impressive number of releases in the next year or so, including a brief role this summer in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, his fifth project with the director, as well as key parts in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things and Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu up ahead.

Dafoe has taken on some of the most varied projects imaginable, from Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (2014) to the Marvel box office behemoth Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) But for him, the range itself is not the point. “It’s not as a show of versatility,” he says, “so much as you want to learn something, you want to have an adventure, you want to go forward and do something different.”

Impossible to typecast despite having played a number of the sorts of roles that might have gotten stuck in both filmmakers’ and critics’ minds — including the bestial but vulnerable Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire (2000), the character actor as monster, and a decidedly fallible Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) — Dafoe attributes his malleability not to any concerted effort on his part to break the mould but to his instinct for choosing projects and characters that excite him. “I’m not a guy who wants to cart out the things that he knows,” he says. “I want on-the-job training.”

Over the course of a more than 40-year career that began in experimental theatre in New York, where he was a founding member of the Wooster Group, Dafoe has had plenty of training in different lines of work, from painting to filmmaking to counselling to armed robbery. He’s become cherished for his ability to maintain his iconicity while confidently slipping into the skin of virtually any kind of person, his unique physicality and striking screen presence always neatly folding into the task at hand.

Early in his career, though, some seemed eager to channel Dafoe’s idiosyncratic presence into volatile, sexually charged, dangerous characters — at a minimum, men you wouldn’t trust to watch your bag, if not outright villains. When we first see him in his debut screen appearance as a moody motorcycle hunk in Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery’s The Loveless (1982), for instance, the camera tilts up to take in his lithe body, intense grey eyes, and striking cheekbones. His leather-jacket adorned figure was the very picture of the motorcycle greaser bad boy, as he combed back his perfectly slicked hair as if he knew we’re looking at him. The camera loved his smouldering strangeness from the start.

Dafoe is reflective about whether his unique appearance was a help or a hindrance early on. “In the beginning,” he says, “I was much more fearful of typecasting, afraid of being limited in how you could be seen and what you could do.” As for his intimidating presence as sinewy, magnetic antagonists in early films such as Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire (1984) and William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), he insists that he hasn’t become any less physical over the years: “It’s just my nature, and also my background in the theatre, which is and was a very physical kind of theatre,” he laughs.

But he concedes it’s true that he had to fight against people holding his early roles against him. “When you start out,” he tells me, “if you aren’t conventionally handsome or attractive in a very recognizable way, the best roles are character roles. And the best character roles for a young man are usually villains. But after I’d done some films and I saw people seeing me a certain way, I was conscious that I didn’t want to lock that down as a stamp. I have no stake in being versatile. It’s just that personally, I don’t want to be called to do that thing that I do.”

His reputation for being unfailingly original has boosted the profile of any number of small independent films, several of which he’s carried to Oscar nominations. But Dafoe insists that he has always aspired to be an actor qua actor, who can move in and out of different roles, rather than a movie star, from whom audiences expect a certain kind of performance. “I admire movie stars in the respect that sometimes they find a persona and then they work in projects that support that persona,” he says, admitting that a star in the right project “can be a very beautiful thing to watch. But I’ve jumped around. I don’t cling to a certain way that I want to be.”

That bears out in the capaciousness and versatility of his screen work. For all his prowess as a villain, Dafoe is also one of the finest actors we have at portraying a kind of troubled decency. We see it not just in his performance as Scorsese’s Jesus, who dreams of deferring his call to die as the Messiah to live as a man, but also in his doomed Sergeant Elias in Platoon — a doting mother hen to his young infantrymen, teaching them which gear they need to carry to survive, and which they can discard to move lighter on their feet — as well as his basically kind but morally compromised drug dealer in Light Sleeper.

It’s especially pronounced in his Academy Award-nominated turn in The Florida Project (2017). Warm and gregarious — and like Dafoe, quick to laugh — his budget motel manager Bobby in Sean Baker’s film is not just an administrator and a handyman but an unofficial social worker for the precariously housed residents who come through his doors.

“I want to be that person sometimes,” he says of generous characters who make sacrifices for others. “It’s fun to play on evil impulses because you don’t do them in life. But when you think about the function of telling stories, it’s nice when you feel like you’re putting something positive forward that can inspire people to say, ‘I’ve got to be kinder.’ That sounds kind of Pollyanna, but in movies, the thing that gets me always is kindness.”

That doesn’t mean it isn’t pleasurable to play characters bending their morals to get their way. “Nobody’s just one thing,” he says. “We’re all a little bad, we’re all a little good, and the proportions vary in each person. It’s always fun to find the sweetness in a bad guy and find the darkness in a good guy. That almost goes without saying. But sometimes it’s a little hard to practice.”

Practice is important to Dafoe, for whom the basis of all acting is doing things rather than emoting: “It’s about listening, it’s about moving, it’s about rhythm, it’s about music.” That action starts with anchoring himself in the skin and bones of his characters. “It always starts with the physical and it ends with the physical,” he says of the appeal of wire-work and action-heavy projects like his role as Norman Osborn in the Spider-Man films. “When you’re physically engaged, there’s a greater chance of getting in the groove because if you get too much in your head, you start creating certain kinds of expectations and ironically, limitations. You can overthink things.”

Unsurprisingly for an actor who has given some of his best performances as tactile men who create (or steal) things with their hands — including his counterfeit money-maker and painter Eric Masters in Friedkin’s film or Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate (2018), for which he received his fourth Oscar nomination and his first as a leading man — Dafoe appreciates concreteness. He lights up when speaking of costumes and makeup as tools for getting out of one’s own head and into the character’s, calling them “triggers for pretend.” Gesturing to his dissipated appearance as the compulsively violent career criminal Bobby Peru in David Lynch’s Wild At Heart (1990), he credits the first time he popped the character’s dentures into his mouth for helping him find the character.

“When I put those rotten teeth in my mouth, I couldn’t close my mouth,” he says. “And if you keep your mouth open all the time, mouth-breathing, it gives you a feeling of sleaziness, a kind of lasciviousness. That was a huge key to the character.” Costumes and makeup choices like the bushy beard and pipe sported by his haggard lighthouse keeper Thomas in The Lighthouse (2019) or his red beanie and baby blue shorts as Klaus in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), he says, “make the world, and you get behind them. Sometimes they trigger something in your imagination or from your childhood. Rather than designing those things emotionally, you’re presented with something that just forces you to be a certain way.”

Where some actors revel in burrowing into the psychology and emotional depths of their characters before shooting, Dafoe speaks often of the pleasure of being forced into his characters’ behaviour by these concrete signifiers of who they are and what they do, which he attributes largely to the imagination and clarity of filmmakers who know what they want. In recent years, Dafoe has worked with a host of emerging auteurs like Eggers and Baker — both of whom he’s said he expressly pursued for projects — and stylists like Yorgos Lanthimos in the upcoming Poor Things, as well as a stable of regular collaborators such as Schnabel, Ferrara, Anderson, and Lars Von Trier.

“I feel like the best directors are the ones that make a world that is so complete,” he says of his penchant for alternating between new colleagues and old favourites, “that you enter it, and it becomes very clear what you need to do. And the pleasure is in doing it and seeing what happens and taking it to some place that you couldn’t imagine.” As frustrating as the business can be, he attests, working with directors with an intelligible vision is a joy, akin to becoming a soldier in their struggle. “The actual doing is such a pleasure and such a gift. It’s a good life.”

Life is best, though, when the roles require a lot of him. Dafoe appreciates small parts where he feels he might have something to contribute, or where it gets him in the door working with a director he admires, but they’re not what sustains him; they can’t compare, he says, to the expansiveness of roles that ask more from him. “You can more deeply pretend when you’ve got a more central role,” he says.

This position is borne out by the specificity and generosity with which, on the eve of his small role in Asteroid City, he remembers his time working on The Life Aquatic, his largest role for Anderson, which he describes as a more improvised working experience than his other collaborations with the famously aesthetically rigorous filmmaker.

“He had that same kind of meticulousness and control and clarity,” he says of their first time working together, “But as far as the actual dialogue and the character, he was a little looser. That was fun because there was room for me to fold into it. There would be a shot where he would say, ‘Willem, go in there.’ I wasn’t written in that scene, but he’d put me in, and then we’d create something. Life Aquatic is dear to me.”

Dafoe also cherishes his collaborations with Ferrara, whose emotionally unvarnished, nakedly autobiographical, devil-may-care approach looks diametrically opposed, at least from the outside to Anderson’s fastidiousness. Their work together has taken on a more personal, intimate tone starting with 2011’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth, a tender chamber piece about domesticity, love, and old habits at the end of the world. “I love that he’s a self-starter,” he says of Ferrara. “I love that he doesn’t wait. I love that he’s passionate. He lives through film. Something like Tommaso (2019) is a totally improvised movie, with maybe an exception of a couple of written scenes. And he just basically whispers into my ear what he sees, and then we try to do it.” A loyal soldier in Ferrara’s creative struggle, per his own war metaphor, Dafoe speaks of doing a kind of service to filmmakers like him, with whom he has a shorthand and a history. “There’s a bond there,” he says, “and when he needs me to do something, I’m happy to be there because I like being part of his story. I think that’s true for all directors that I’ve worked with more than once. I like being part of the texture of their work.”

For all his desire to move forward rather than fall back on old roles or old skill sets, Dafoe admits that leaving behind such memorable tours of duty and returning to the actorly equivalent of civilian life can be melancholy. “I just wrapped Nosferatu,” he tells me, “and I was reflecting on how no matter how many films that I’ve done, finishing one is always bittersweet because you’re like a man without a country. You’ve had a mission, you’ve had this collaboration that you’ve been invited into, and sometimes it’s in a very exotic place, or a place where you aren’t comfortable, and you’ve got to find a way to get comfortable. You get taken away from your life and you have this parallel life for a period of time, and you dedicate yourself to it and something happens. And then you finish your work and you’re like, wow, what was that?”

Yet he sounds awfully well-adjusted and good-tempered for a man with so many parallel lives — tickled by the possibility that he’ll get to live another life soon. “It’s a very strange feeling,” he says of the mournful period immediately after closing shop on a project he’s given his all on for weeks or months. “But after a while, you have it enough that you recognize that it’s not going to kill you.” Not a workaholic but an adventurer, Dafoe is always on the lookout for what’s next, driven by an internal voice that motivates him out of that initial bittersweet lull to think about the next chapter. “Relax for a little bit,” it tells him, “and then find another mission, find another family, find another collaboration, find another thing to make.”

Photography: Charlie Gray (LGA Management)

Styling: Jay Hines (The Only Agency)

Grooming: Brady Lea at Premier Hair & Make-up using Shakeup Cosmetics

Hair: Sam McKnight

Stylist Assistant: Marzia Cipolla

Photo Assistant: Samuele Donnini

Producer: Simona Silvano

Feature Photo Look: Prada

Shot on location at Anantara Palazzo Naiadi Rome.

The post Willem Dafoe Isn’t a Movie Star; He’s a Character Chameleon appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Also known by the artist handle GANGBOX, Garrison-Msingwana works across a variety of mediums — including painting, sculpture, and digital rendering — to conjure his own uniquely absurd vision of the world rooted in fashion, pop culture, and the supernatural. He has collaborated with clients including Loewe, Adidas, and Stüssy, and recently launched his first U.S. solo exhibition of paintings, “LAUNDRY 002 – A Thread is a Vein,” in New York and Los Angeles.

The collection of 12 paintings is a continuation of his remarkable LAUNDRY series, which is predicated upon the idea of piles of clothing possessing their own life and sentience. In Garrison-Msingwana’s “uncanny universe,” clothing is near biological. “Who knows what the internal structure of these piles actually looks like,” he explains, “beyond just the regular human form.”

The Book for Men caught up with Garrison-Msingwana to discuss his upcoming multimedia projects, how anime continues to inspire his work, and why he thinks AI could never truly replace artists.

You grew up watching and drawing Japanese anime, which often features characters with an almost supernatural stylishness. How important was fashion to you and your art from an early age?

I didn’t really associate the two for a long time, but I was really interested in character design. Especially in anime because they have these really bizarre characteristics — like Kenpachi, in Bleach, has bells at the tips of all the spikes on his hair. Things like that were just so beyond, bending physics and reality, and I always really admired that. Japanese storytelling, and honestly most cultures’ storytelling, stories from my dad’s culture — he’s Tanzanian from Dar es Salaam — are so reality-bending and folkloric and magical, and I realised that I could blend it all together easily in my work.

With “LAUNDRY 002” there’s a wonderful absurdity to how unwieldy the piles are. How inspired were you to create fashion that is similarly physics-bending?

That does totally tie in. I just don’t really worry about the rules. I think it’s important to keep that dreamlike nature to it; a kind of floatiness that can exist, or a rigidity with some of the clothes and the fabrics that would be so technically hard to achieve. I’d need a whole other career just to be able to make a lot of that stuff, or to even understand where to begin with real textiles and real fabric. So painting it just liberates me to experiment, and then maybe I can collaborate and leave the other areas of expertise of making it real to somebody else.

You recently exhibited this collection in L.A., and New York before that. What was it like going coast-to-coast with your work?

Spectacular. I’ve never felt more accomplished and proud. And so much of that is due to Hannah Traore, my gallerist, and her belief in me and support in getting people interested in what I’m doing. It’s really beautiful to encounter people that have their own completely different interpretations of my work. Honestly, that keeps me going in many ways. I have a lot of theories about what I’m doing, but mostly I’m just doing what comes natural to me.

What are some of the insights you gained?

Somebody brought up homelessness to me and how these figures reminded them of bag ladies, or bag men, who live with everything they have. And that makes me think even deeper about what aspects of yourself are intrinsically you. One of my good friends told me that he looked at the piles and felt a sadness. He thought that it looked like these piles were very burdened. Even though you can’t see any physical traits, I guess it was making him think about how heavy it would be to carry all those things, and how limiting it would be. Things like that can set me off in new directions and are beautiful ideas that wouldn’t necessarily have come from my own mind.

You’ve spoken before about wanting to do more multimedia and textile work. What are you working on now?

I can’t say too much right now, but essentially I’m working with a company who are providing materials for me to figure out how to design sculptures. They are essentially PILES, but for a brand. So they’re maybe not as chaotic as I would make ones for my own purposes, but it’s my first endeavour in trying to make them real using textiles. I’m profoundly excited about working with textiles in limited runs in a sustainable way.

I’m also moving to the UK at the end of the year because I want to work on a comic book full time, and I’ve decided that that’s the place that’s best to do that (laughs). I think I’m going to treat it like [Katsuhiro] Otomo, where I’ll probably put like 10 years into it because I’m going to be a bit of a psychotic perfectionist about it all.

The story is called Ghettomancer, but I’m just world-building right now, coming up with characters, their motivations, and overarching stories and themes that I can take from my real life and experiences and kind of codify them or stick them into this very supernatural world that I’m working on. The nerdy kid in me is like, ‘Wow, this is really happening, I’m going to be able to contribute to this world of incredible art that I’ve always admired.’ That kid is like my best friend.

As a working artist, how do you feel about the rise in AI-generated images? Does it inspire you to make your work more bespoke to human experience?

Definitely. The idea of AI having consciousness or trying to supplement humanity is what concerns me. I like technology, but when it comes to my work, I’m definitely an analog guy. The solitude and the simple act of exploring and using my hands and my mind to solve problems is my favourite part. And I love to leave evidence of humanity in everything I do. I leave the tape on my paper works, and you can see fingerprints and mistakes that I painted over. It doesn’t take away from the beauty, in fact I think it adds to it in many ways.

I don’t think that AI could ever get in the way of that, or compete with real artists, to be honest. And I feel like the people who want that out of art don’t appreciate artists and art very much. It’s probably mostly advertisers who don’t want to pay a model, and who would prefer to generate an image for five cents. I just don’t see the point of trying to fake that, or trying to force some evolution to that thing that is already so essential and beautiful about being human, you know?

Photography: Scott Pilgrim, shot on location at East Room.

The post Moya Garrison-Msingwana Sees Humanity as Art appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

The Japanese artist will also be presenting a new Infinity Mirrored Room — arguably her most famous, unarguably her most Instagrammed, medium. Kusama’s previous Infinity Mirrored Rooms have plunged the viewer into never-ending universes filled with star-like luminous orbs, polka dot-covered pumpkins, chandeliers, and other optically-interesting visual phenomena.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Rooms one of the most popular and influential projects in contemporary art, their public openings inspiring long lines. Patrons are eager to immerse themselves in the Japanese artist’s vibrant world and, most importantly, to document it.

During the last Yayoi Kusama exhibition at David Zwirner, in 2019, the gallery was forced to implement a one-minute time constraint to accommodate the 75,000 people who lined up to step inside “Dancing Lights That Flew Up to the Universe.” The exhibition’s opening coincided with the tenth anniversary of Kusama’s first gallery show with David Zwirner.

Learn more about Yayoi Kusama’s show.

The post Infinite Jest: Yayoi Kusama at David Zwirner Galleries appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Father’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the dads we know and all they’ve done for us over the years, but also to take stock of the ever-evolving concept of fatherhood itself, and the myriad ways in which dads of all kinds make the world a better place. In honour of this occasion, SHARP’s Father’s Day guide is packed with everything you need to toast the dads in your life, plus essential wisdom from some of the coolest dads we know. 

Cory Vitiello, Chef 

A star of the Canadian culinary scene for more than 15 years, Vitiello splits his time between developing restaurant concepts for LFG Growth Partners and running Flock, his growing chain of rotisserie restaurants. Vitiello’s latest project, however, is closer to his heart: a book about cooking with his son. In his new book, Dad in the Kitchen (Penguin Random House, $37.50), Vitiello shares his favourite dishes to make for (and with) kids. 

What’s the best advice you’ve received about fatherhood? 

The best advice that I had came from Martina, my partner, who from day one encouraged me to be a part of bedtimes, feeding times, and nap times. I didn’t have a lot of friends who had similar experiences, but if she hadn’t insisted that I share those responsibilities, I would have missed an opportunity to create a real emotional connection and bond with Barlow from day one. 

How are you a different parent than your dad was? 

He’s much more outdoorsy than me, and I remember from an early age learning how to canoe and fish and all of these kinds of quintessential father-child moments. My version of that is inside the kitchen. We cook together, we talk together, and that’s our bonding. It’s not going out into nature and pitching a tent, it’s going to the grocery store or the market and picking our dinner tonight. 

What’s your go-to recipe to make with your son? 

If it’s been a challenging day and we need something quick on the table I like to make a kind of carbonara with broccoli and this creamy cheese-egg sauce. Barlow pulls up his little stool and sometimes he helps me grate the cheese and mix the eggs, or he’ll just draw or mould play dough beside me while I’m cooking. 

Bombay Sapphire 

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The only thing better than a perfectly mixed gin martini is a perfectly mixed gin martini that makes the planet a little better. That’s why Bombay Sapphire has been working to become the world’s most sustainable global gin, from the recycled bricks and roof tiles at its award-winning distillery to the 100 per cent sustainably sourced botanicals certified by ECOCERT in every drop. With its signature fresh and vibrant taste based on the original 1761 recipe and its iconic blue bottle (made from one-third recycled glass, naturally), this premium gin is ready to take Dad’s summer cocktails to the next level. ($31)

Glenmorangie Original 10-Year-Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky 

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There are a lot of nice highland single-malts out there, but few of them can be considered true classics of the genre. Glenmorangie’s signature whisky, however, has been in production for over 175 years and has been a constant presence in the world’s most discerning bars for almost as long. Matured for a decade in first- and second-fill American ex-bourbon casks, its unique peach-and-vanilla character makes it a quintessential sipping whisky, whether neat with a few drops of water or on the rocks. ($77)

Angel’s Envy Bourbon

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Founded in 2010 and based in the heart of Louisville, this relatively recent addition to the bourbon scene is aged for four to six years in new, charred white oak barrels before being blended to achieve its signature flavour profile. Crucially, during the final stages of production, Angel’s Envy is one of the few bourbons to be finished for up to six additional months in Portuguese port barrels before being blended again. The result, with notes of maple syrup and chocolate, is sure to earn a place on any bourbon fan’s top shelf. ($80)

Ian Rosen, President and COO 

As the third generation of his family to lead Canadian menswear retailer Harry Rosen, Ian Rosen has a unique perspective on the importance of strong relationships between fathers and sons. Menswear may be in his blood, but as a father to three young daughters, he’s enjoying becoming as skilled at braiding hair as he is at selling suits and ties. 

What’s the biggest challenge of being a dad for you? 

Being able to balance what’s going on professionally with being the dad that I want to be at home. I learned that lesson from my father and grandfather who travelled a lot and had very busy professional lives. It’s very challenging, but it’s really important for me. 

What’s been the most rewarding thing for you so far? 

My oldest daughter is getting super into music so I’m trying to get her hooked on bands that I like. She recently got to know a few Beatles songs and we made some headway with Yellow Submarine. I’m just fascinated that there are these things that they don’t know about yet and I get the opportunity to introduce them to. It’s really cool. 

How are you a different parent than your dad was? 

We’re in the same profession and business never stops, and even more so in today’s world where we have e-commerce running 24/7 365. There’s always an excuse to turn back to business so having the discipline not to do that is probably the most important trait that I was taught as a kid. But my dad also had three boys and I have three girls, so it’s definitely different… I can do a very good French braid. 

Hermès H Embroidered Buttoned Polo Shirt 

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Every dad has two kinds of shirts in his wardrobe — the ones he wears when he needs to look his best, and the ones he really loves. This low-key polo from the legendary French Maison is that rarest of rare things: a shirt that’s as comfortable as it is stylish. Made in Italy from preternaturally soft pre-washed cotton, this versatile top is ready to add a colourful punch to his workday wardrobe and a suave complement to his off-duty looks. If only finding the perfect pair of pants was this easy. ($760)

Fendi Antique Small Nappa Leather Tote

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This bag – slate grey, straight from the runway – has made a seamless transition into the menswear collection at Prada. Fashionable as it is, the bag doesn’t sacrifice function – its sheer durability is enough to impress the most practically minded fathers. Antique leather material provides a sturdy build, fit to carry essentials like laptops and books in style. ($3,950)

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller

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It doesn’t get as much hype as some of the other members of the Rolex family, but from its Oystersteel and white gold case to its mint green dial to its Jubilee bracelet and fluted bezel, the 2023 Sky-Dweller is every bit as entitled to a place on the most discerning of wrists. In addition to its attention-grabbing looks, the Sky-Dweller is fitted with one of Rolex’s most complicated movements including an annual calendar and second time zone, making it a useful tool for frequent flyers. ($18,700)

Bulgari Aluminum Capri Solotiempo 

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For dads who are partial to unbuttoned shirts, deep tans, and spending as much time in the sun as possible, this limited-edition Bulgari captures the romance of the Mediterranean with a gradient dial the colour of Capri’s clear blue water. Its 40mm case is made from aluminum, with a DLC-coated titanium case back, a rubber bezel, and 100m of water resistance, so he won’t have to take it off to have a dip in the Blue Grotto, or wherever his summer vacation takes him. ($4,320)

Fendi Peekaboo ISeeU XCross Bag 

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It’s a problem nearly as old as fatherhood itself: a dad must carry many things, and he must have something in which to contain them all. Different dads have different answers to this age-old question, from messenger bags to backpacks to canvas totes, but none of these has quite the same level of fashionable street cred as the Fendi Peekaboo IseeU XCross. This Italian-made carry-all, an evolution of one of the most coveted designs in their women’s line, has recently migrated to the menswear collection, bringing with it a whole new way for fashion-forward dads to tote their stuff in style. ($4,500)

Tudor Black Bay 41 

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As anyone who collects watches will tell you, the correct number of pieces is exactly one more than you currently have. Tudor’s new Black Bay 41, however, makes a strong argument for a one-watch collection. A classic tool watch, the Black Bay’s understated combination of a 41 mm steel case and bracelet will look good with everything from a suit to swim trunks, and its new in-house automatic movement is rated for exceptional accuracy. Whether he owns a single watch or a dozen of them, there’s a good chance Dad is going wear this one more than any other. ($4,880)

Dior Men Baseball Cap 

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If Dad is a fan of Succession, he may be familiar with the phenomenon of the status cap and its ability to impart the air of formidable power and discerning taste on anyone who wears it. If not, this blacked-out baseball hat, crafted in Italy from high-quality cotton canvas, will be a perfect introduction. Billion-dollar stock portfolio and private jet not included. ($800) 

Nazem Kadri, Athlete

After a decade playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Kadri secured his place in history by helping the Colorado Avalanche take home the Stanley Cup in 2022, with seven playoff goals and eight assists to his credit. Recently signed to a seven-year, $49-million contract with the Calgary Flames, Kadri is proud to be an executive board member of the Hockey Diversity Alliance and one of the most successful Muslim hockey players of all time. 

What surprised you the most about becoming a dad? 

How fulfilling it is to come home to my little girl. 

What’s the best advice you’ve received about fatherhood? 

Enjoy the early years.

What’s the most challenging thing about fatherhood for you? 

Having patience every day. 

What’s your favourite way to bond with your daughter? 

Watching her play sports and playing them with her.

What’s your favourite “dad hack”? 

I just try to make her as busy as possible during the day, and that always makes bedtimes easier. 

How are you a different parent than your own dad? 

I’m very hands-on, and I enjoy spending quality time with my daughter, just like my dad used to do with me. I would say I’m a more patient man than my father was, which has been key in raising her.

As a dad who travels for work, how do you try to show up for your kids, even if you’re not home? 

Travelling is hard, but my daughter and I FaceTime every day. I’m always checking in to see how her day is going.

Adidas Golf ZG23 Lightstrike Golf Shoes

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In golf, as in so many other areas of life, the right footwear makes a big difference. Adidas Golf’s new featherweight ZG23 Lightstrike is their latest feat in a never-ending quest to give dads (and everyone else obsessed with chasing that little white ball around in their free time) the winning edge. With microfibre leather uppers, a dynamic hybrid midsole, and a six-cleat Thintech outsole, they’re designed to deliver all-day comfort, stability, and maximum performance. You can’t buy Dad a lower score, but this might be the next best thing. ($250)

Louis Vuitton Pacific Chill

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Louis Vuitton’s latest scent takes inspiration from California’s balmy breeze, with purifying notes like black currant and carrot seed giving a nod to the West Coast’s renowned wellness culture. Crafted to “rally the senses,” it evokes the carefree feeling of beach volleyball while staying true to sophistication. The gradient green bottle is sure to please the crowd during Father’s Day festivities – bonus points if it’s a patio dinner or lakeside stroll. ($370)

Citizen CZ Smart Sport

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Citizen’s newest smartwatch is a wearable personal trainer, with a suite of high-tech software focused on helping Dad reach his peak potential every day of the week. In addition to useful features like a step counter, heart rate monitor, and NFC payment capabilities, the CZ Smart’s new YouQ software leverages AI models built with the IBM Watson Studio and research from NASA to offer personalized wellness insights throughout the day. After a week or so of studying Dad’s activity habits, from his sleep cycle to his exercise regimen, YouQ will begin to provide personalized suggestions to help him maximize his output, including the occasional power nap. What dad wouldn’t want that? ($469)

Timberland Earthkeepers by Raeburn Timberloop Utility Mid Boots 

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Dads who love spending time outdoors will appreciate the eco-friendly makeup of these rugged runners, which includes a 100 per cent recycled PET liner, regenerative leather on the toe, heel, and tongue, a regenerative rubber outsole, and organic cotton side panels. Durable and trail-ready, they’re destined to become Dad’s go-to footwear for outdoor adventures, and thanks to the Timberloop process, they can be recycled when he’s done with them. ($200)

Louis Vuitton Andrews Golf Kit

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There’s teeing off and there’s teeing off. This set of three balls and four tees in a signature Monogram canvas case won’t specifically help Dad score under par, but it will help him feel like the most stylish guy on the course while providing a strong motivation to steer well clear of water hazards and woods. You can always spring for Louis Vuitton’s matching Monogram golf bag next year. ($1,080)

Canada Goose Nanaimo Rain Jacket

Canada Goose Nanaimo Rain Jacket

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“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear.” If that sounds like something a dad in your life would say, then he’ll appreciate the quality and attention to detail in this adventure- ready jacket from the legendary Canadian outerwear brand. Heat-sealed seams, an adjustable hood, and scalloped cuffs will keep him cozy and dry on the most blustery of days, whether he’s hitting the trail for a hike or doing a rainy early morning school run. ($595 at Harry Rosen)

TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition 

TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition 

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TAG Heuer’s latest Connected Golf Edition smartwatch brings Swiss precision to the fairways with luxurious details and sophisticated software designed to elevate any player’s game. Presented in a sleek and ultralight titanium case, this next-gen wearable is like a caddy for your wrist, displaying the distance for your next shot as well as club recommendations at a glance. A redesigned interface also makes it easy to control high-resolution 2D maps — complete with hazards and distances — for more than 40,000 golf courses worldwide. ($3,100)

Neil Pasricha, Author 

In his 20s, following a painful divorce and the suicide of his best friend, Neil Pasricha started a blog called 1000 Awesome Things to try and cheer himself up. A little more than a decade later, he’s a New York Times best-selling author of 10 books with a popular podcast and a full schedule of speaking engagements around the world. His latest title, Our Book of Awesome (Simon & Schuster, $30) brings his uplifting mix of wit and insight to the myriad small joys of being human.

What surprised you the most about becoming a dad?  

There’s a feeling of… not quite immortality, but maybe a lessening of my own self-importance.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about fatherhood? 

“Who you are matters more than what you do.” 

What’s your favourite “dad hack”?  

Keep all the Lego pieces on a blanket. Then scoop up the entire blanket and put it in the bin.  

Have you ever felt constrained by stereotypes about how a dad should or shouldn’t be? 

 These days it feels like we’re past most dad expectations or judgments. For me it’s just a game of time and of savouring. If life expectancy now is 10 decades — knock on wood — there’s only one decade with little kids. So it’s doing all the things that feel implausible but which you’ll never regret. In general, it’s aiming for less programming and more time together.  

What’s the best way to think about parenthood and happiness? 

Nothing matters more to long-term happiness than the strength of your relationship with friends and family. Nothing. Not health, not income, not nationality — nothing. So every father-son hooky day or after-dinner dance party or long chat in the car is ultimately a strengthening of the relationship — and of future happiness. 

Gucci Men’s 1953 Horsebit Loafer

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A Father’s Day roundup isn’t finished without a proper prep shoe. These Horsebit Loafers from Gucci elevate days at the office and lunches with family alike, pairing well business-casual slacks or everyday chinos. Half an inch in height, the shoes add a slight boost before curving downwards where the gold horsebit detail takes centre stage. ($1,205)

Guess Uomo Acqua

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There’s a very good chance that the dad in your life locked in his signature scent a decade or more ago — and an equally good chance that that scent is whatever his favourite brand of drugstore shower gel happens to be. Guess’s latest fragrance, Guess Uomo Acqua, offers the perfect way to elevate his grooming game with a refreshing and vibrant scent inspired by the ocean. With zingy citrus and cucumber top notes, woodsy juniper, and a moody hint of sandalwood, it’s as complex as it is comforting, much like the old man himself. ($75)  

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio 100th Anniversary

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EVs may be the future, but they’ll never match the pure visceral pleasure of a finely tuned Italian sports car. Released to mark the centenary of Quadrifoglio, Alfa Romeo’s high-performance division, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio 100th Anniversary has the spirit of a race car, with a twin-turbo V6 engine making more than 500 horsepower and a throaty growl designed to raise the hair on the back of your neck. Befitting its golden year, the 100^th Anniversary model receives a set of snazzy gold brake calipers, a carbon fibre grille, gold interior stitching, and a new version of the iconic four-leaf clover badge designed by the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo. All of this adds up to a machine that will put a smile on any dad’s face while shaving a few minutes off his next grocery run. (Price on request)

Paul Newman Print by Al Satterwhite 

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No matter how cool the dads you know may be, they’ll have a hard time matching the pharmaceutical- grade coolness of Paul Newman trackside at the Sebring 12-Hour race in 1978. her’s Game-faced and tanned, sporting a flame-retardant jumpsuit and the most coveted Rolex watch in the universe, this limited edition portrait of the actor and motorsports enthusiast at the height of his powers is worthy of a place of honour in any man cave. ($13,100 at 1stDibs)

Lego Land Rover Defender 90 Day

Lego Land Rover Defender 90 Day

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Sure, he may spend his days doing grown-up things like going to meetings and shopping around for better insurance rates, but at the end of the day, Dad is still just a kid at heart. If you’re in doubt of this, just look at his face when he unwraps this lovingly detailed 2,300-piece Lego homage to the classic Land Rover Defender. If you’re lucky he might even let you play with it when it’s finished. ($330)

Looking for a little more inspiration? Check out our selections from 2022 below…

We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu

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Simu Liu, our SHARP: The Book For Men cover star, shares his origin story in We Were Dreamers. Whether Dad is an avid reader or wants to get into reading, this memoir by Canadian actor and Marvel superhero is an excellent place to start. (Sale price: $25)

Citizen Promaster Dive Automatic

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If Dad is overdue for a new watch, Citizen’s latest launch of the updated Promaster collection arrived just in time. The new range of Promaster Dive Automatic watches are an update to a much-loved classic dive watch from the brand, and is offered in a wide range of dial colours and materials choices. If we had to pick a favourite, it’s the all black ion-plated reference seen here with a fully luminous dial. ($850)

adidas x Gucci Men’s GG Platform Sandals

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Give Dad the best of two brands he loves with these green cotton sponge slides from the adidas x Gucci collab. For at-home lounging, hanging by the pool, or running errands this summer, these sandals are chill and effortless like adidas yet opulent and stylish like Gucci. ($805)

Hennessy XO

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Get Dad a little something you can enjoy together. Booze is always a nice gift and Hennessy XO is a little extra special — with notes of orange rind, butterscotch, dried fruit, and hints of plums and vanilla. ($190)

Louis Vuitton Damier Spread Long-Sleeved Shirt

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Is Dad finally returning to the office? This classic Italian-made white shirt from Louis Vuitton has a printed Damier motif on the chest and shoulders, making it an effortless way for him to make a statement in funky yet appropriate business attire. ($1,460)

Us and Them: Canada, Canadians, and The Beatles

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It’s likely the father figures in your life are fans of The Beatles — and with good reason, of course. This book by John Robert Arnone chronicles the surprisingly deep connection that our nation has with one of the world’s most iconic bands. Your dad will be surprised to see how rich the history really is, and he may never listen to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album the same way ever again. (From $30)

Dior Saddle Backpack

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For travel, work, or just on-the-go living, the beige and black Dior Saddle Backpack with the brand’s oblique jacquard and black grained calfskin has many compartments and adjustable straps. It’s sleek, stunning, practical, and will make a great gift for any father figure in your life. ($4,000)

Puma Golf PROADAPT ALPHACAT Golf Shoes

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For the athletic Dads, these Puma Golf PROADAPT ALPHACAT kicks are a solid pick. They’re stylish, comfortable, and high performing due to the use of premium technologies in their production. ($200)

Assouline Rolex: The Impossible Collection

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Assouline is a luxury publisher specializing in fashion, design, travel, and lifestyle coffee table books and their Rolex: The Impossible Collection makes for a superb gift for Dad that’ll look great on any coffee table. Selected by specialist Fabienne Reybaud, the Rolex watch models in this book showcase the most valuable and technically innovative the luxury watchmaker has ever produced. ($1,345)

Away Centerfold Garment Sleeve

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Does Dad travel often for business — or tend to pack his best outfits on his weekend getaways and golf trips? This Centerfold Garment Sleeve from Away is the perfect option to help him pack his best pieces and keep them wrinkle-free, compact, and secure all trip long. ($85)

Moscot Lemtosh Sun Sunglasses

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With both Father’s Day and summer just around the corner, gifting Dad a pair of trendy sunglasses is an excellent idea. Protect his eyes from the harsh sun, while ensuring he’ll be the most stylish-looking guy around. ($415)

Yeti Tundra 35 Hard Cooler

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For the Dad who loves camping, day trips, and keeping his brews cold (up to 21 beer cans to be exact), the Yeti Tundra 35 Hard Cooler is a no-brainer that’ll surely put a smile on his face this Sunday. ($375)

Prada Nappa Leather Shirt

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Show Dad he’s still got it with this Prada Nappa Leather Shirt that you know he can definitely still pull off. The “bluette” shade and the retro-style silhouette make it a chic selection. ($3,750)

Psycho Bunny Classic Baseball Cap

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A baseball hat is a safe choice but this one from Psycho Bunny in azalea pink, takes things up a notch. The shape and style, made from 100 per cent cotton, is a classic one so you know Dad will like it even if he has to step outside his comfort zone a bit to sport a pink cap. ($35 USD)

Drive Time Deluxe Edition: Watches Inspired Automobiles, Motorcycles, and Racing Hardcover

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Drive Time Deluxe Edition focuses on the iconic racing chronographs of the mid-twentieth century (think: Rolex Daytona, Omega Speedmaster, TAG Heuer Carrera, and more), so any watch — or auto — fanatic would likely appreciate this thoughtful gift. ($200)

The post A SHARP Guide For Fathers, By Fathers appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

In his new book titled Louis Vuitton Skin: The Architecture of Luxury, renowned critic Paul Goldberger delves into the history of Louis Vuitton’s avant-garde buildings. He explores how architectural designers broke free of traditional branding, rejecting a standardized visual code in favour of unique arrangements for each location. 

Louis Vuitton’s choice to outfit their boutiques in tailor-made blueprints, Goldberger explains, was a natural extension of the fashion house’s penchant for elegance. Known for their place at the forefront of haute couture, the French house envisioned their storefronts as having “the same appeal as the Maison’s products, elevated to civic scale.” 

Skin proves that Louis Vuitton’s mission was a success. Like the latest menswear partnership with Japanese artist Yayoi Kutsuma, Louis Vuitton’s maisons combine the brand’s trademark craftsmanship with uniquely artisan appeal for cutting-edge results. The Seoul location, for instance, is a curved, dynamic, glass structure made in collaboration with architects Frank Gehry and Peter Marino. The clear construction evokes the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, while whimsical curves take inspiration from the traditional Dongnae Hakchum crane dance.

With thoughtful analysis from an author Huffington Post called “the leading figure in architecture criticism,” the book is a must-read for architecture aficionados and fashion-heads alike. Perhaps a nod to the variation of its subject, the book comes in six different covers, each featuring one of Louis Vuitton’s most distinctive builds: Beijing, Paris, Seoul, New York City, Tokyo, and Singapore. The text boasts 372 pages from its Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, along with 245 illustrations.

Learn more about Louis Vuitton Skin.

The post Paul Goldberger’s New Book Explores the World of Louis Vuitton Architecture appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

BlackBerry, which opened in theatres on May 12th, follows the rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone created by Waterloo-based company Research in Motion. Directed by Matt Johnson, the film follows co-founders Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his business partner Douglas Fregin (Johnson). When they employ businessman Jim Balsillie (Howerton), they get the experience they need to sell the world’s first smartphone. 

The 47-year-old is best known for playing Dennis Reynolds on the long-running dark comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He loves roles where humor complements drama. He’s been itching to do more dramatic roles and this film certainly gives him that palette. 

Reynolds likes to think he isn’t a method actor, but the way he shaved his head and got into the film’s routine made him think he might be. One thing he won’t do, though, is compromise his relationships to get the work done — his professionalism and candour are admirable.

We caught up with the actor when he was in Toronto for the premiere of BlackBerry, discussing his role (in the running for his best to date), his career, and his red carpet style. 

I’ll start with the important question: Did you ever own a Blackberry?

No. It was very much on purpose. Honestly, at the time, I didn’t understand the appeal. I think [it was] for people who wanted to email and text as quickly and efficiently as possible, to always be available whenever that was needed of them, and I was the opposite. I don’t want to always be reachable by email — I never liked email. I still don’t like email. It’s the bane of my existence.

When I first saw the iPhone, I was like, ‘that thing is really, really cool!’ But the only reason I got one was because it was a gift.

I found your interpretation of Jim very entertaining and really well done. What was the draw for you with this script?

The screenplay was just so marvelously well-written, so well structured. As a writer, I’m looking at it, just enjoying it for what it is and examining whether I’m drawn to or inspired by the role. But I’m also looking at it as a screenwriter and admiring the actual structure of the film. Not to get too geeky, but I was really, really impressed with the structure of the script. And then, of course, I was introduced to Matt Johnson’s earlier films.

I had a couple of Zoom conversations with [Johnson] and knew almost immediately that I was 100% in because it was all of those things. When you combine that with the fact that I truly, truly love Canada and Canadians, I knew it was going to be a rewarding experience.

What was the biggest difference between your first impression of Jim and who he turned out to be as you prepped for production?

That’s a good question. I had an initial impression of what I wanted to do [with the role]. Then, having had multiple conversations with Matt Johnson and feeling like we were on the same page, it was on the day of actually filming the scenes, coming up with variations throughout with every take. There was a lot of experimentation on set. For instance, if Jim was getting really upset about something, we would try it multiple different ways.

That was one of the wonderful things about working with Jay too – every take is different. The way [Matt] choreographed the cameras and the scenes – even though we didn’t have the budget to do a million takes – he shot it in a way where we could do multiple interpretations of each to give him as many different things to play with in the editing room as possible.

Jim is sort of the villain, but I didn’t completely see it that way. How did you want to portray him?

Like any great villain. I think he would think that he’s the hero of the story, and that the only reason things fell apart was because people didn’t listen to him. So he had to be, I guess, what some people would consider the bad guy in order to achieve what they were trying to achieve globally as a company. He knew that nobody else was willing to take it on, and sometimes you need that guy. There’s a reason why sharks exist. Jim was less concerned with people liking him than he was people admiring him on a larger scale. I think he knew somebody needed to take on that role, and he knew he was the kind of personality to do that and also have the intelligence to back it up.

You must have had a lot of fun playing a ruthless character, and it’s not completely dramatic, but a comedy angle too. 

It is a lot of fun. I just enjoy playing things that are almost entirely different from who I am as a real person. For me, it’s cathartic because I get to exercise parts of myself that I never would in real life.

I like to consider myself a people person; I don’t like making people feel uncomfortable. I don’t like being mean to people. There’s certain qualities of someone who can be brutally honest in any given situation that I genuinely admire, but it’s just been fun to put on a different pair of pants.

Do you prefer to play roles like this which allows you to exercise different acting muscles with drama and comedy at the same time?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve been itching to do more dramatic roles. But for me, a great dramatic performance is really not interesting if there’s not some comedic element to it, some elements of humour to it. That really humanizes it for me. I also think that humor is a great tool. In a movie like this, it disarms you. The greatest effect is that the humour disarms you and makes you more susceptible to the more dramatic moments. 

This is a very Canadian film and it’s a big part of our history. How would you describe your experience making it and filming here?

Incredible. I need to come up with a way to describe what it is exactly that I’m drawn to [about] Canadian people. Every time I encounter a Canadian in the United States or come to Canada and encounter Canadians everywhere, there’s just something about Canadian people that I really, really like.

It’s almost like people in America don’t know how to be brutally honest without being rude. Somehow, Canadians have a way of being very straightforward and very direct, but like, doing it in a way that doesn’t feel rude or unpleasant. It’s that combination of things that I’d love to strive for in my own life. I have tremendous admiration for someone who could be direct and honest, even in the face of possibly insulting someone, and yet somehow not feel like they’re being rude. So, anyway, that culture was very much present on set and so it made it a very pleasant set to be on.

We love talking about style and it seems that with Jim, he’s always dressed in his best suits. Did you enjoy the hair and costume choices for Jim?

Truth be told, I don’t enjoy putting on a suit every day. I actively avoid living a life where I have to do something like that (laughs). But it certainly was great for the character – and shaving my head and walking around as a bald man for two months was really quite liberating. It actually liberated me from my own identity in a way that I found very helpful for the character and maybe take myself a little bit more seriously.

Honestly, after about a month of filming, I was still putting on a suit every single day. It became ritualistic for me. I would show up in my trailer, I’d go to hair and makeup, I would shave my head, I would get my makeup on, put on a full suit, and it felt like getting ready for work. It really put me in the place I needed to be in to, certainly, feel much different than I feel in my normal life.

Do you usually go out for a character like this in terms of shaving your head?

I guess so; it’s funny, I don’t think of myself as someone who does that. But I realized, seeing how people reacted to the film, that I do it more than I realize. I’m certainly willing to do whatever it takes to embody a character, but I’m not willing to compromise my relationships with the people around me. That’s the one thing I’m not willing to do. I won’t compromise my relationship with my children, my wife, my friends, my family in order to become something. But shaving my head, wearing a suit every day, or like, dyeing my hair orange or something like that – why not?

How would you describe your sense of style? 

I tend to be a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, and cool jacket guy. Casual but slightly elevated, I guess. Just so I don’t look like a slob. If I’m gonna wear jeans, I want it to fit well. And if I’m gonna wear a T-shirt, it’s gonna be a T-shirt that fits well and has good material. So it’s kind of elevated, nice versions of very casual things. 

BlackBerry is now in theatres.

Feature Image by Corey Nickols, courtesy of Getty Images.

The post BlackBerry Star Glenn Howerton Gets Candid on Comedy, Career, and Canada appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Per the brand itself, Bleu de Chanel is a cologne for “a man who does not limit himself to the ordinary boundaries life sets and looks beyond what is visible.” This type of person, they say, is captured by Chalamet’s “visionary and edgy spirit.”

The contents of the bottle, of course, live up to their lofty reputation. A spritz on the wrist smells like an early spring walk through the woods: base notes of sandalwood, patchouli, and cedar anchor top accents of grapefruit and pink pepper, blended with middle notes of nutmeg, jasmine, and ginger. Subtle yet assertive, the men’s fragrance symbolizes the quiet elegance Chanel is known for. 

When asked what the cologne represents, Chalamet said: “Not unlike movies and storytelling in general, the scent and the narrative behind it are open for interpretation.” The actor’s involvement, then, is especially apt – he says he’s always been drawn to literature and philosophy: “One-liners that make sense about the truth of life – that’s where it’s at. It comes down to whatever helps you make sense of the day and where you’re going.”

Chalamet continues to pad his resume in 2023 with roles including Paul in Dune: Part Two and the titular character of Willy in Wonka, both due to premiere this year. In the meantime, the 27-year-old is set to act as Bob Dylan James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, filming this summer. 

Just as busy, the French fashion house has enjoyed a high-profile spring, epitomized by the Met Gala’s Lagerfeld tribute. Fittingly, the productive pairing is more than a regular endorsement – in typical Chanel fashion, the campaign is a marriage of art and luxury. The advertising campaign, shot by Mario Sorrenti, is set to drop in June 2023, followed by a film directed by Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman), scheduled to release this fall. 

The film will be the second of Scorsese’s in Bleu de Chanel history; he directed late French actor Gabriel Ulliel (Hannabal Rising) for a fragrance promotion in 2010. Special events like these don’t just make their mark culturally – for Chalamet, a scent renders memories indelible. “For me, personally, there’s a specific intention behind fragrance. I’m not someone who wears a scent all the time. When I do, it becomes emblematic of a moment, and later there’s a nostalgia for that moment and it becomes something more meaningful.”

The collaboration marks the first time Chalamet has served as the official ambassador to any beauty or fashion label. We’re sure, however, that the actor will join the industry with ease – as Chalamet told Chanel, “If something doesn’t evoke fear, it’s not challenging enough for you to do.”

Learn more about Bleu de Chanel here.

All photos supplied courtesy of Chanel.

The post Timothée Chalamet: Bleu de Chanel’s New Ambassador appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World is Malcolm Harris’s third and most expansive book. With great insight and a wry sense of humour, Harris charts the relatively short history of Palo Alto, beginning with the Anglo-settler colonialism that began just 150 years ago. Exploring periods of exhausted resources, eugenics projects, and new technologies, Harris’s intersectional approach offers a terrifying, astute, and occasionally hopeful look at the world’s broken core. 

SHARP spoke to Harris about branding, esports masculinity, the Land Back movement, and more. 

In the book you quote David Star Jordan, who says, “great men live great lives because they’re great; they’re not great because they’ve lived great lives.” That seems to be a recurring theme within the book. What explains this idolatry of the people who live and work in Palo Alto?

 It’s great branding, and it’s been the branding for forever: California represents instant limitless possibility and wealth for anyone. This was the branding from the beginning of the Anglo-American settlement. It’s funny that, before then, it represented something very different. It was the last corner of the world that no one managed to colonize effectively. Then it quickly becomes California in the same way that we understand it to be California today as a zone for get-rich-quick schemes, speculation, as well as beautiful weather. And the beautiful weather part is real, right? The ecology of the Bay Area in particular, it’s beautiful and was certainly more beautiful a century and a half ago. 

That plays an important role in its history, as people want to move there because it’s nice. Immigrants from Italy were like, “I don’t wanna live in Boston. Where else can I live?” So, they live in California. Also, the business of the place is this branding and reputation, pulling in capital from all around the world. To do that, it has to sell itself as a magical, different place, which it is in some ways it is. There is some truth underneath the myth, both historically and ecologically.

In the book, you not only chart the evolution of the land and business of Palo Alto, but also this idea of the “ideal man.” We begin with this well-rounded, all-American type character who is smart, rich, and a great athlete. Later on, with men like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, there’s almost a pride in being antithetical to that original ideal. What explains this change? 

What you’re talking about is the shift in what historian Charles Petersen calls bureaucratic masculinity to nerd masculinity. And, right now we have an interesting synthesis going on of the two. Bureaucratic masculinity has to do with how these successful men are selected in the system. In the mid-century, you’re talking about the military-industrial complex that is very intentional about elevating what it views as talented, good, and potentially successful young men in particular. It involves not just being smart but also being well-presented, being good at sports, being handsome, dressing well, etc. The whole package, right? These people are literally chosen by administrators of higher education and the military for elevation. It’s really embodied by someone like David Packard. He’s a great example because he’s selected consistently by the powers that be for positions, they basically pick him to start Hewlett-Packard. 

With Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the shift is to nerd masculinity, where you have a sort of collapse of that public system as a result of conflicts in the ’60s and early ’70s, where the solution is too diverge in the U.S. from these public systems and to concentrate privilege and access within private systems; the suburbs, gated community, private schools, more expensive colleges, etc. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are great examples of that suburbanization, and with that comes the flouting of previous standards of bureaucratic masculinity.

Since they no longer have to appeal to the bureaucracy in higher education or the military – they don’t join the military, they don’t go to college or drop out – they have to appeal to the market. They find success by flouting those previous standards with a new kind of masculinity. Now we have a kind of esports masculinity? They want to be jocks and nerds at the same time. Not just a balance, but both to a really high degree. They want to be jockey jocks and nerdy nerds. You see someone like Elon Musk pretending to be a super computer programmer – when he’s not one and everyone knows he’s not one – but as part of this esports masculinity he has to pretend he’s the best coder at Twitter, because otherwise why would he be in charge? It’s like Jeff Bezos has to be jacked; he has to have a super hot girlfriend; he has to fly on a spaceship, but also be a super nerd. I’m still toying with what comes after nerd masculinity, but I think esports masculinity could work out [laughs]. 

I find someone like Zuckerberg such an interesting case study, though. He benefits so much from his proximity to power and elitism, while also painting himself as an outsider. 

They want a new hierarchy with themselves on top. They pretend to be the type of person who deserves that role, even though it’s really luck and happenstance and has little to do with them as an individual, except that they’re a little mean. You see Mark Zuckerberg fashioning himself like a Caesar Augustus type, down to the haircut. It’s about obsessing over past elite leaders and thinking that he is in this line, and that that’s why he has so much wealth and power is because he is who he is. It goes back to that David Star Jordan quote, right? He’s trying to say, I’m living this great life because I’m a great person. I am a product of my quality and not a product of circumstances. Even though we know that’s false. Watching Facebook fall like fifty per cent in some months, I’m not sure how something like that integrates into their self-conception. Does your self quality just fall by half? Are you half as great as you were before? I’m glad I don’t have to worry about my stock price. 

A lot of your critics are taking issue with your conclusion, where you propose that a small piece of land owned by Stanford University be returned back to the Muwékma Ohlone. You’re not pretending to have invented the Land Back movement, but a lot of your critics seem to think you are. Why do you think people are so upset? 

Canadians probably have a better sense of it than Americans, just because I think the Indigenous movement is more active in Canada than it has been in the United States, although it’s changing. It’s a continent-wide movement. It’s always interesting to hear what perspectives people have on what that’s meant and how serious to take it and in what way. Some people have taken it very symbolically, some people much less so.

 I’m pretty sure the Land Back activists don’t mean it symbolically. 

Exactly. The crazy part is that [the history of California] is only 150 years old. That difference [between East and West Coast] is so important. People who don’t take the conclusion very seriously have said, “he says give back the land to Indigenous peoples,” and I said no, I’m talking very specifically about the Muwékma Ohlone. It’s a politically constituted group, I think there are about 500 people and they need a place to live on their ancestral land and Stanford acknowledges it is on their ancestral land. 

Stanford not only has a land acknowledgement, but if you go to the “land acknowledgement” page for Stanford University, it has a link about Land Back. It says we can’t just talk about it with acknowledgements and rhetoric – we have to talk about ceding the land. It’s pretty low-hanging fruit. They have 8,000 acres – it should be pretty easy to cede at least the land and money necessary for the members of the tribe to make a life for themselves. 

The amount of land you’re suggesting is actually small in context of the colonisation of California. 

It’s really just this very bitsy little corner. Compare it to the land that was deeded to the Southern Pacific Railroad, for example, which is the size of Maryland. Their response is, “well it’s a really nice corner.” It sort of gives the game away. They say the land is super expensive. And it’s like, “yeah, you took all the nice parts! You only want to give up the parts nobody wants!” 

It’s interesting that this covenant with the Stanfords, with the founders, that the land could not be sold – with some exceptions for transferring to sovereign entities such as the United States government –has been respected, but the ancestral people’s covenant that the land not be sold was never respected anywhere in this continent. I don’t think it’s very complicated. 

The New York Times had a very scathing review of your book, basically taking you to task for cherry-picking quotes. Among them, they suggest you don’t dwell enough on the violence of communist regimes and the millions left dead. How do you respond to this type of criticism? 

It’s like a sucker game, right? We all know where it goes – that’s what red-baiting is for. In the book, when I talk about the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States, I think it’s interesting that the communist movement in California, which was very strong, ends up sacrificing itself to the popular front on the orders of Moscow. That’s not the idea that we have of communists and what communists do, right? [We think of them] as loyalists, unwilling to compromise with capitalists under any circumstances – certainly in the United States, but what we see in California is a shift in policy when the Roosevelt administration recognizes the Soviet Union, which the Hoover administration had refused to do.

 Part of that agreement is that the Soviet Union cuts off attempts to forment revolution in the United States, and they do and it kills this movement, basically. It sets the labour movement back in California, and it’s a sacrifice that these radicals are knowingly making to this popular front that’s going to fight Nazism. It’s funny that the historical memory of these people is so short that they only go back to the ’60s. They can’t even recall the context for this whole thing. The book asks a lot of the reader – you have to actually read it page by page, line by line, or you’re going to sort of misunderstand the perspective. 

When we see the communist labour organisers in California – when the workers want to push harder and push for more money because they think they might be able to get it, even though it might lead to more death in the fields – it’s those communists on orders from Moscow saying, “look guys, we think this is probably the best bet you’re gonna get, even though it means getting rid of us,” even though that trade was to get rid of the communist unions. The idea that Stalin’s relationship to California is uncomplicated is itself a thin reading of the book. Red-baiting isn’t a truth-seeking practice, so if you wanted to know answers about this history, that’s not the tack you would take. 

Since it’s pivotal to the argument of your book, could you explain the Palo Alto System?

It’s important to understand that it’s a metaphor, right? If you go to Palo Alto now and ask about the Palo Alto System, they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. They might make something up because that’s the kind of people they are, but they don’t know, they don’t know this history. It’s not a literal continuation, but it was this new way [of thinking] that really starts with Palo Alto starting as a horse farm.

The Palo Alto System was a new way of training horses. They built a kindergarten for horses and started running horses as fast as possible as young as possible, which is a revolutionary way to bring up horses. They succeeded in raising more younger, faster horses than anyone in the world. That was the Palo Alto System.

Those same values of youth, potential, scale, profit, experimental technology, and disruption that underline the Palo Alto System of horse production – as well as the disregard for all the good horses that get their legs broken because they’re running too fast and too young – all that continues to underline Palo Alto in the 150 years after the Palo Alto system.

The post Malcolm Harris on Palo Alto, Masculinity, and Land Back appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Iwuji is wise, well-spoken and gracious in his demeanour as we sit down in Toronto to talk about his latest entry. He makes his MCU debut as the High Evolutionary in James Gunn’s final film in the franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The film premiered in theatres on May 5th. 

The Nigerian-born British actor is known for his roles on Peacemaker, Underground Railroad, and Designated Survivor. However, his Marvel debut — his biggest role to date — made him a household name. For him, it was a stimulating role that helped inform his instincts as an actor. 

The 48-year-old always wanted to be an actor — while studying economics at Yale University, he joined the university’s drama society. He loves working on a wide variety of roles that don’t have a through-line. Iwuji gets excited at roles that, when first offered, surprise him. 

We spoke to the actor about his MCU role, learning about the journey of perfection, what drives him, his acting process, and how films speak to him. 

Congratulations on the show. I heard that you and James never wanted to make the High Evolutionary sympathetic like other Marvel villains. 

We were going to make him grounded; making him grounded was like making sure that we stuck to our guns, if you excuse the pun. This guy is a cruel narcissist, he’s a sociopath, but he’s incredibly intelligent and he has a vision — to create the perfect society at whatever costs. That’s a very dangerous vision, so we were gonna stick to our guns and not try to make him sympathetic. If the audience saw something in the performance or in his message that they kind of get, or if they saw something when they discovered a vulnerability, then that’s great, that’s up to them. We were never gonna play for it, we were never gonna seek it out. It was important that we presented this guy in all his danger and single-mindedness.

James always saw you as the High Evolutionary. He said he saw something in you. Did you see that same something in yourself when you got this role?

I am most drawn to roles where someone says, ‘I want you to play this’ and my first instinct is, ‘Really?’ I don’t know — and I’m never going to ask — what James saw in me during Peacemaker that made him think I should be the High Evolutionary. I’m glad he did, I loved it, but I don’t know what it was. As soon as someone offers you a role, and you decide that you want to do it, you immediately see how you’re going to. For me, I immediately saw how I wanted to do it, then I saw what I could bring to the High Evolutionary.

Is that your process with every role that you get? The villain in this strives for perfection, so do you strive for perfection as an actor? 

Yeah, sadly. I’m getting better at it. The older you get the more you realize that that life is literally too short. I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop striving for perfection, but I’m getting better at forgiving myself when I don’t get it.

The High Evolutionary is an example of the futility of perfection. Perfection is entirely subjective; there is no objective perfection. His idea of perfection, and his means to get it, is completely flawed and tragic and wrong. So I guess yes, I can work backwards and say ‘Well, it’s clear perfection is a stupid thing. Why do I keep looking for it as an individual, as Chukwudi?’

So then if you go for different kinds of roles, do you have a process you stick to as an actor?

I really wish I had a really sexy, interesting process (laughs). Like, I go to the Bronx Zoo, and I study animals and I live on the street for a while to know what turmoil is… (laughs). No, I read the script and the clues are in the script. Usually, if the writing is good — and certainly in this case, it was — then the imagination goes to work.

I’ve been basically forming that since I was born. I see things that I steal or borrow, from performances and from real people. It’s all being stored. There’s this thing that happens when you actively study the script, craft, which is developing your body and your vocal range. You develop all that so that when you meet the material, your body is ready to take it in and bang out something that surprises you, something called character.

I don’t have to be the High Evolutionary; I can create it and I’m happy creating it. I created it and got paid to do it. I allowed my imagination to be rich, and I allowed myself to sweat or relax as much as I needed for my imagination to come to life.

And I heard you had the classical opera playlist for this role?

Yeah, I put it together and I threw it at [James Gunn] and he loved it! One of the proudest things in my life is that I gave a piece of music to the great James Gunn, the king of playlists, that he actually used in his movie. Yeah, that’s one of my great achievements.

He’s very specific about his songs, so that is good to hear. James chooses the music from the very start, incorporates it in the script, and then plays it on set while filming. How instrumental has that been for you as an actor?

It’s so brilliant, I can’t tell you how much it helps. I can’t speak for every actor, but I think most of us loved it. There was a particular scene, quite an emotional scene with Rocket, and we shot this big scene and the music came on. And it wasn’t just me it affected, it affected the crew. I remember afterwards in the break, the crew was like, ‘What was that piece of music? What was that?’

When we see films, you can’t disassociate a score from a scene. If you take the music out of the scene, the score out of the scene, you take any Morricone score out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where they’re standing there, [you] have only half the film, right? So to have that playing when you’re doing the scene was the biggest thing you know, it was amazing. I loved it and it propelled me forward. 

I have to ask, how do you deal with internet trolls who choose to talk about you or any actor of colour as a “diversity pick?” 

I’m not on Twitter, but I’m aware of these things. I focus on the faces of the people I saw in Comic Con in Hall H 7000 people when I made that entrance first, the generational excitement from father to son, father to daughter, grandfather to father, they’ve all come up in the comics and in front of them is the embodiment of the thing they read and they were excited. I focus on that and knowing that’s the majority.

When a troll comes out, that becomes news, but that is such a tiny minority of what’s really out there. The premiere was just last Thursday and I just felt such love and warmth from these people. That’s the majority. And that’s how I felt because I don’t engage. I don’t want to give more time to that than is necessary.

You’re a theatre actor: you love Shakespeare and Hamlet is your favourite. In that respect, is there a role in a film that you would like to do?

I mean, the thing about Hamlet and whatever is that those roles have existed for 400 years and you can pick them. In film, you don’t know what anyone is writing, but I hope someone’s writing something that really excites me.

I don’t really like to talk about things, but [I’d like] to play James Baldwin. For years people have been stopping me on the street. Just yesterday, we were in Atlanta and someone working in the hotel said, ‘You remind me of a historical figure in America.’ I go, ‘Is it James Baldwin?’ So people have been telling me that for years.

The first time I worked with Common, that was the first thing he said to me. When I did Underground Railroad with Barry Jenkins after we did our first rehearsal, he goes, ‘Has anyone told you you should play James Baldwin?’ So basically, if I were to pluck something out that I’m looking forward to doing soon, it’s to play him and just vanquish this ghost.

You graduated from Yale, you’ve done theatre, how does doing film satisfy you as an artist?

I feel that all those stages in my life — from deciding to study economics and going to university and doing film — they’re all part of my building blocks in my life. I’m sitting in front of you because of all those things. So I am clearly getting satisfaction because my life continues to move on and new surprises keep coming, and I’m having fun doing them. So I guess, I’m living the life that I’m supposed to be living. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theatres.

The post Chukwudi Iwuji on His MCU Debut in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

“I believe that every day we’re on this planet, we have the potential to grow, to fulfill, to create, to spread love, and to spread light,” Common explains. “To bring that consciousness and spirit and good energy, there’s so much work to be done. I do believe that art has been one of the most impactful ways that I’ve been able to do it, and I just thank God that it’s one of my purposes.” 

It’s a typically humble response from one of the most influential artists and social icons of our time. Throughout the ’90s and 2000s, Common helped define an era of socially conscious rap, while pioneering the Soulquarian movement with such legendary collaborators and luminaries as Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Questlove, and the late J Dilla. 

He was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to perform at the White House alongside other distinguished poets and writers, and later recorded the first ever Tiny Desk Performance from the People’s House. He even got to collaborate with his long-time hero Maya Angelou on the title track of his 2011 album The Dreamer. In his career as an actor, he has appeared on screen alongside some of his inspirations, including Denzel Washington and Ruby Dee, and just last year made his Broadway debut alongside the great character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson. And he has never stopped releasing thought-provoking and deeply soulful music for which he has been awarded, among many other accolades, an Emmy, several Grammys, and an Oscar. 

Though he’s one Tony Award away from an EGOT, that doesn’t mean he has an ego. He speaks passionately about always working to evolve as a musician; in fact, he doesn’t believe you can ever truly become the master of anything, especially when it comes to life and art. He mentions listening to De La Soulagain in the wake of the death of founding member David Jolicoeur, better known as Trugoy the Dove, which coincided with the revered hip hop group’s extensive back catalogue finally making its way to streaming. 

Common’s still learning from the music that he grew up with, and it continues to inspire him to strive for greatness. “I went back and tried to learn some of their raps in different ways, and I’m like ‘Man, the learning is infinite with this stuff,’” Common says. “There’s so much, you’ll never get it down. I don’t care if you’re noted as the number one emcee to ever live, you still can get better. And I feel like I always want to be better and get better.”

He can be most recently seen honing his acting craft in the Apple+ Original series Silo, a post-apocalyptic mystery based on the science fiction book series of the same name by Hugh Howey. His character is one of the ten thousand underground occupants of the titular structure, which is buried hundreds of stories beneath the surface of the earth in a seemingly toxic dystopian future. The story’s hook is irresistible: the inhabitants do not know who built the silo, or how long their people have been down there; they do not know why the world outside the silo means certain death; and they do not know when it will be safe to go outside, only that this day has yet to come. Curiosity regarding these bigger questions is, shall we say, disincentivized within the populace. 

Common plays Sims, the head of Judicial Security within the subterranean civilization, who is burdened with preserving the status quo of the silo by any means necessary. The actor likens the Judicial organisation as a whole to ade facto governmental structure, with his specific department resembling a combination of Congress and the CIA.

As befitting a man for whom the work is never truly done, Common was in the booth when he first heard about the project that would consume the better part of the next year of his life. Since the pandemic, he has become even more intentional about how he spends his energy and values even more where he chooses to put his heart and soul. He usually doesn’t allow phones in the studio when he’s recording, but his manager and agent assured him they had an important opportunity to discuss. He was immediately intrigued by the project’s pedigree: it was developed by veteran creator and showrunner Graham Yost (Justified), with Academy Award nominee Morten Tyldum attached to direct and the acclaimed Rebecca Ferguson starring and executive producing. Once he began reading the script, he could barely put it down.

“Sometimes for my birthday, my friends and I get a boat down in Florida and just enjoy the day. I started it that day before we went out on the water, and I remember the feeling that I couldn’t wait to get back so I could read the rest.” His only caveat was working outside of the United States, since he had appreciated being home after the pandemic. But ultimately his enthusiasm for the project, not to mention the city of London, won out.

He describes his time on Silo as one of the greatest creative experiences of his life. “Being part of something you think has the potential to be great has been so fulfilling.”

Though he cuts an intimidating figure, permanently clad in sleek leather jackets and dark turtlenecks while oozing a controlled menace, Common is quick to locate the family connection that grounds the character. Sims has a son and a wife and desires more than anything to keep them safe. He also has a responsibility to protect the other residents of the silo, which unfortunately might mean suppressing any inconvenient truths that could potentially incite a rebellion or otherwise drive order into chaos.

“He has to manipulate things sometimes to keep control, which is something we know that governments do,” he says. “They plan, they are very smart in certain ways, and do things to keep people distracted, keep people in fear, keep people in order. Because the silo’s a difficult place to be in, but also people realise that it’s their way of life, it’s their culture, and they want to protect it.”

The metaphorical timeliness of finding yourself stuck inside, being unsure if the government is lying to you, and feeling as though you are slowly losing your rights is not lost on Common, but he insists that governments have lied to their people since the beginning of our history. There is nothing new under the sun or, in this case, under the dirt.

While he allows that the comparison is salient, to him these are larger philosophical questions. “If we think about the silo, people are being told that what’s on the screen is what it’s actually like outside, but they have no idea what the truth really is. And I think that’s one of the things in society, and I’ll speak to America — people have to discover for themselves what the truth is. Certain things are true: a bird is a bird, a tree is a tree. But individuals have to be allowed to develop their own perspectives too, along with certain universal truths that exist. And in the silo, you get to see how this structure doesn’t allow you to develop your own way of thinking.”

The feeling he describes, however, couldn’t be further from the experience of actually making the show. “I feel like I’m working on one of the projects that I’ve been most inspired and enthused and fulfilled holistically.” The actor also recently completed a run on Broadway in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Between Riverside and Crazy.

“All the actors I knew, not to mention acting teachers, told me the stage was going to be the most challenging experience for me as a performer,” he recalls. “Some also said it would be the most fulfilling, and I think both were right.” For someone who had grown up loving theatre, it was a dream come true. He knew he had the acting chops and had certainly rehearsed enough in his acting classes — but until he stepped on that stage, he would never truly know what was demanded of him.

What was incredible for Common from the jump was the amount of preparation involved in the process, not to mention the discipline required to actually carry it out. During early read-throughs, he found it very challenging to sit at a table for eight hours a day, which he realised he likely had not done since his last menial job at 18. But he acknowledges the hardest part for him is just showing up.

“To do the work every night, that’s the biggest choice. To actually go out on that stage every night even when you’re thinking, ‘How am I gonna do this?’ You’re tired, maybe you’re concerned about something going on with your family, but you still have to go out and do the work.”

The demands of the schedule took a toll on his health. In the course of the rehearsal period and three month run at the Helen Hayes Theatre on West 44th, the actor suffered everything from COVID to an upper respiratory infection to laryngitis to a stomach virus. As Lee Strasberg may well have said at one point in his career, theatre is no joke. And yet Common’s enthusiasm was hardly dampened. “It’s something where I think, I want to do this for the rest of my life, and I’m already looking forward to doing it again.” 

Common recognizes how lucky he was to be working with such accomplished collaborators in his first foray on the stage, and also admits he may well have been spoiled by the experience. “I was working with Stephen McKinley Henderson, one of the greatest actors of all time. Not everybody knows his name yet, but when they came to that theatre they got to see a true master. And I was able to learn from him and bounce scenes off of him and absorb his wisdom.” Henderson reprises his role from the original off-Broadway production as Walter ‘Pops’ Washington, a retired New York City policeman who is in the process of suing the department after being accidentally shot by a fellow officer. 

Common stars as his recently paroled son Junior, who moves back into his father’s home with girlfriend Lulu and sober buddy Oswaldo in tow (played by original cast members Rosal Col.n and Victor Almanzar). The play deals with the domestic struggles faced by this makeshift family while they attempt to hold on to one of the last rent-stabilised apartments on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. 

This experience has only deepened his respect for those who dedicate their lives to the stage. “I want to acknowledge everybody that participates in theatre, whether it be regional or across the board, Broadway, off-Broadway, West End. It’s a real collaborative team of passionate people that do theatre,” Common says. “From the people dressing us, doing costumes, to the people that did the lighting, they’re just there for the art. Obviously you have to make a living, but they care about this art form. It’s a beautiful thing to behold, and it comes through in the passion they bring to the work.” He also has nothing but the highest praise for Stephen Adly Guirgis, who he calls one of the great playwrights of several generations. 

When he first read the play, he was not only blown away by how funny and raw it was, but by how the material had only become more plangent over the years. “That’s what it’s like to experience something that’s timeless. The immediacy of great art can speak to now and forever.” When asked if his view of the role of the artist in society has changed over the years, Common doesn’t hesitate. Looking back on who he was as a person when he recorded his first album, he realises he had no idea there was so much power in having a microphone, and that he could actually impact the course of other peoples’ lives with his music. Honestly, he just wanted his friends to think he was dope, and for KRS-One and De La Soul to know who he was. Not a bad place to start, he admits. But the more time that he spent in the industry, he began to realise that he felt a higher calling as an artist, and that he had a duty and a responsibility to his audience. “Not just a duty to make music, but also to always be evolving as an artist, and speak truth to where I am.” This impulse to be true to himself has led to records that have sometimes challenged fans’ perceptions, like Electric Circus or Universal Mind Control. Common sees it as a responsibility of the artist to continually challenge themself. “I owe it to the people to try and give them things that can be life-changing and inspiring, because I feel like if I’ve had the exposure to these things, then it’s for a reason. It’s not for me just to hold onto. It’s like if you have some information or you’ve experienced something, do you want to just hold onto it for yourself? If so, it’s not serving its greatest purpose in life, and maybe you’re not fulfilling yours.”

It’s a duty and a responsibility that he feels blessed to have. He’s also in the enviable position of being able to make music when he is inspired to do so, and not in order to pay the bills. Not only that, but when he is creating new material he doesn’t have to bow to commercial considerations. “It’s not in the back of my mind all the time like, ‘I need to be on the radio station.’ And that in itself is so amazing because it’s being done with the love in it. I don’t even know where it’s going to go, I don’t know if 10 people are going to hear it. I just want to put music out there and have it resonate with people who are open to it.” His newest albums, A Beautiful Revolution Pts. 1+2, were created amidst the pandemic, and he credits the creative sessions with helping to keep him balanced during that difficult time. “It brought so much light to me, and I think that comes through. Even if it’s a song dealing with something heavy, our passion and the love that we bring creates its own joy.” 

Common seems to be a man that people go to in times of trouble, a port in the storm, and he’s more than happy to share his light. During the pandemic, he had a lot of friends calling him to check in and to ask him for any wellness tips that he could share. “I’m just learning, I’m not an expert,” he admits, “but I was letting people know what I was doing, whether it was taking turmeric, or working out, making sure I was saying my prayers, or just watching something that was funny.” He realised that spreading health and wellness was something he could do to give back to his community in a very trying time. 

This led him to start the health and wellness series Com + Well on YouTube, where he stated his intent to meet his viewers wherever they are in life and provide them with tools and resources that they can use to take care and love themselves in new ways. He knew that not everyone was as privileged as he was to be able to thrive during the pandemic, so he wanted to do his small part to share the happiness he felt lucky to have. “I know we’ve all experienced that feeling that when things are good, you know, I feel like I got things locked down. Then two days later, I feel like I’ve been knocked off my freakin’ horse, and I gotta get back up.” That’s part of what helps keep him humble. “This is a true experience that everyone goes through on the path of life. Because of that, I’ve never felt like, ‘man, I made it’, and that’s it, you know?” 

When asked what else he would like to accomplish as an artist as well as a man, his response was refreshingly straightforward. “As a man I think I’m always looking to grow my relationship with the Creator, I’m looking to have fun, I’m looking to build in life partnership, to build my relationships, and to become a better listener. And also become more fruitful to the planet in all aspects. As an artist I’m like, let me use my talent, these gifts and the passion that I have to continue to multiply and add on, to my life, to other peoples’ lives, and to the world in the best way possible. To the day I leave the planet, I want to be creating art; acting, making music, and doing activism work. That’s how I feel.” 

For Common, it’s all about appreciating the here and now. “One thing I have learned in this life is to be present in the moment when something is going really great. Like if I’m at an award ceremony, or if I’m in a session with Stevie Wonder, I always think, ‘Dang, how did I get here?’ I’m working with Stevie Wonder, he’s one of the first records I ever owned, you know? So I am definitely happy and grateful to be in those moments. You don’t lose the admiration and the joy of being there with people that you’ve admired for your whole life. I don’t lose that. I always have that.”

Photography: Ciesay

Styling: Jay Hines (The Only Agency)

Grooming: Maria Comparetto (The Only Agency)

Production: Aila Koch at Pluslive Studio

Lighting Director: Darren Karl-Smith

Movement Director: Emmanuelle Loca-Gisquet

Styling Assistant: Ashley Powell

Shot on location at Spring Studios

The post Common Continues To Push Beyond the Limits appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Rochester has done work for Apple and Netflix — and maybe you saw his mural, International Friendship Through Basketball, painted as a collaboration between Aimé Leon Dore, New Balance, and NYC’s Masaryk Community Gym. His client list also includes collector cat-nip brands like Nike, Actual Source, and trading-card company Topps.

His art is ultra-specific, coming together from a particular melange of influences and cues that could belong only to him — for example, his painting of the rugs draped over a Ferrari F40.

“The addition of rugs is just another example of blending certain worlds together,” he says. “Growing up, my mom collected rugs and hung or laid them throughout the house. This, paired with posters of supercars hung all over my bedroom walls growing up — and that oftentimes rugs are sold and traded through travel and out of the back of cars — is what loosely inspired that piece.”

But the feeling his art evokes, of remembered stuff and nostalgic objects, is hyper-relatable, especially for anyone that’s ever had a case of collector-brain and geeked out over cars, t-shirts, basketball, or whatever. 

Where cars and nostalgia intersect, the results are often ugly or cringey; that Rochester’s work is so aesthetically intriguing makes it stand out. Not many artists would take the time, for example, to weave the rear-end of a Mercedes 190E Cosworth into a 50 x 60” rug or paint a loving portrait of a Subaru Baja.

“Since a young age, mainly through videogames, I developed an interest in how cars were drawn and designed,” Rochester says. “And, even more specifically, I had an obsession with body kits and how aerodynamics varied between every model, realizing just inches of an adjustment can completely change the feel and performance of a car.”

“I remember playing the first race of the video game Need for Speed: Underground in the white and red Type-R Integra with the huge spoiler; that car (though not a Type-R) ended up being the first car I ever owned.”

These days, Rochester drives an F80 M3, which, for anyone not versed in geeky BMW model codes, refers to the fifth generation M3 that arrived in 2015. 

“I’ve also always loved automotive stories that embrace custom/handmade craftsmanship,” he continues, name-dropping the custom Porsche 911s built by Nakai-san under the RAUH-Welt BEGRIFF (RWB) name, the meticulous Porsche 911 restomods by Singer, Alpina BMWs, and early AMG-tuned Benzes. “I feel like these nuances in automotive culture have always drawn me into those special details that I try to similarly have in my own work,” Rochester explains.

It’s strange to see cars remembered and celebrated the way Rochester does. In art and movies, automobiles are usually loaded symbols, visual stand-ins for freedom, but increasingly also commerce, climate change, or mortal danger. But cars, like a particular album or piece of clothing, can also be unique personal artifacts, nostalgic visual reminders of a place and time and a feeling, or an obsession. Rochester reminds us that these things are worth remembering, and maybe even celebrating too.

The post Jacob Rochester: Nostalgia Sparks Creativity appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

I’m not the only one obsessing over O’Brian’s work: a recent GQ article by Gabriella Paiella explores the mystery of why the film adaptation of Master and Commander “has found a new life on the internet, simultaneously the subject of memes and sincerely beloved by a certain type of guy.” She concludes that above all else, male viewers have been responding to the “healthy male bonding between the characters,” giving themselves over to the fantasy that it “could be fulfilling to live and work on the HMS Surprise.” Or as Anthony Lane put it in his review of the film, “we feel ourselves to be in good company with these men, and strangely jealous of their packed and salted lives.”

It’s no surprise that this kind of camaraderie has come to seem so appealing. The U.S. Surgeon General recently warned of an “epidemic of loneliness,” and the imposed isolation of the last several years has only accelerated the problem: men in particular are literally desperate for friendship, and unremitting solitude continues to damage their health. Certainly, it would be fun to drink grog and fire carronades with the likes of Captain Jack Aubrey on the high seas. But the vision the novels describe isn’t appealing simply for the nautical setting. More to the point, it’s fun to imagine a rollicking adventure with the boys.

This feeling of cheerful brotherhood courses through our Spring issue. It’s embodied by Giannis Antetokounmpo, the widely decorated NBA All Star who has abandoned his pursuit of individual accolades in favour of working for the common good of his team, the playoffs-bound Milwaukee Bucks. It’s touted by character actor turned celebrity chef Danny Trejo, whose acclaimed Los Angeles cantina was designed to celebrate the hard-won sense of fraternity he forged on the prison yard. And it’s commended — perhaps unexpectedly — by the notoriously cantankerous Brian Cox, our Spring cover star, who extols the need to work together, as a team, on any film project worth its salt.

As I write this I’m preparing for another boisterous night on the town — another lively evening at our favourite local watering hole, of cheap ale and howling karaoke, of shots all around when another of the boys rolls through. (And I hope to squeeze in a few more pages of O’Brian before then.) All this brotherhood is plainly good for the heart and good for the spirit. So, let’s have a toast — to friendship.

— CALUM MARSH, Managing Editor

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