Vince Vaughn

GQ: For the full article, pick up the December issue of GQ.

Dude

Vince Vaughn is not coming off a thirty-seven-hour bender. He only acts that way. And that’s what has made him the funniest, most appealing man in Hollywood this year

By Devin Friedman

Scene One: Vince Does His Best Al Roker

If Vince Vaughn weren’t Vince Vaughn, it would seem a little creepy for him to be standing around watching half-naked little kids splashing each other in a fountain in a public park. A lone male &Mac222;gure at the periphery, slightly pale, sweating, watching a kid in a bathing suit make for the water—probably an individual to whom Megan’s Law should apply.

He’s a robust character—six feet &Mac222;ve inches, in jeans and a snap-button cowboy shirt, handsome, strong-looking—but just a little, if not depraved, nocturnal for the environment. If VV weren’t VV, people would probably clutch their children and walk briskly toward safety. But since he is VV, the parents of the kid in the bathing suit ask if they can get a picture with him. And seeing that it’s okay to approach, the others, until now circling warily, go in for the kill. A man from a pawnshop in a white knee-length T-shirt gets an autograph (“Sign that shit to Jackie,” he says); a teenage boy in a rakishly angled White Sox cap just wants a bro hug; a middle-aged woman in fuzzy pink &Mac223;eece paces back and forth in tiny steps before saying, “I’m from Nova Scotia?” This, she hopes, will be dispensation enough.

“Come here, Nova Scotia,” VV says, gathering her up in his arms like a sexy, subversive Al Roker. “You had me at hello.”

VV undergoes a minor transformation when he’s around the general public, the seekers of bro hugs and camera-phone pictures. He slips into character, distributing patter and slightly cocked affection without making anyone feel bad about asking for it.

“Get in here, sweetheart,” he says to a girl in platform shoes and a miniskirt, as her boyfriend takes their picture. “She’s a great girl,” he says to the boyfriend, giving him a wink. “I like where your head’s at.”

I’m not saying there isn’t a little fatigue back there behind the curtain while he’s being Vince Vaughn. That, like a department-store Santa Claus who smells faintly of bourbon, he doesn’t seem sometimes to be going through the motions. But it’s a violation of his principles to let on as much. He believes in the covenant—he works for these people, kind of belongs to them, and so is obligated on occasion to really be that dude from the movies. It’s like that scene in Wedding Crashers in which he’s making balloon animals for a group of children, and one little bratty kid with blond hair says, “Make me a bicycle, clown!” And instead of hauling off and smacking the kid, he says, “All right, I’m going to make you a bicycle. But I don’t want to make you a bicycle.” VV gets paid to be an entertaining personality, and he’d &Mac222;nd it unprofessional to get pissed off when people see him and say, “Make me a bicycle, clown!”


Coat by Jil Sander. Turtleneck, Polo by Ralph Lauren. Pants by Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Vintage boots by Dingo.
Photo: Peggy Sirota


Jacket by Lucky Brand Jeans. Turtleneck and pants by Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Photographed at Frances’ Deli, Chicago.
Photo: Peggy Sirota

GQ: Men of the Year 2005 Portfolio

Heath Ledger — Leading Man
Almost a decade after his arrival, Heath Ledger’s back in the saddle in Brokeback Mountain, only this time it’s an entirely different experience for the actor. People actually like this movie. “I’ve never been in that situation before,” he says, laughing. It could have been a joke. A gay cowboy film? And one costarring protopuppy Jake Gyllenhaal, no less? But like any love story, Brokeback Mountain would live or die on the answer to one question: Is this romance believable? And thanks to Ledger, it is. Actors have won Oscars playing gay before, but unlike Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, when Ledger picks up the trophy it will be for the performance, not the politics. —Mickey Rapkin


Corduroy blazer by Dries Van Noten. Hat by Stetson.

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Terrence Howard — Breakout
This year, we got to watch a 36-year-old actor become an honest-to-God movie star right before our eyes. In Hustle & Flow, Howard wasn’t just good; from the moment he showed up, cajoling one of his ladies with a hypnotic line of pimp palaver, he was iconic, like Travolta swinging that paint can in Saturday Night Fever. Even if you didn’t know where he’d come from, you knew he’d arrived. You can see more of Howard—much more—in Get Rich or Die Tryin’, playing 50 Cent’s jail buddy. When initial attempts to create the illusion of nudity in a prison-shower scene failed, director Jim Sheridan told the actors to drop their towels. Howard says that later on, “I ask Jim how much of the shot he’s going to use, and he says, ‘You can see everything.’ So there goes my bashful side. I flashed the world for the sake of my art.” —Alex Pappademas


Suit by Yves Saint Laurent. Shirt by Michael Kors. Shoes by Gucci. Hat by Borsalino

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Jeremy Piven — Agent Provocateur
It’s no secret that Hollywood agents tend to be soulless, moneygrubbing swine. But HBO’s hit show Entourage, whose high points feature Jeremy Piven as a raging, manipulative agent named Ari Gold, has raised the amoral business to an art form. As Gold—a thinly veiled portrayal of über-agent Ari Emanuel—Piven has finally come into his own, after dozens of tours de force, in everything from The Larry Sanders Show to Grosse Pointe Blank. Hollywood has reacted to Piven’s character in much the same way the Mafia reacted to The Godfather. One agent at the United Talent Agency has been quoted praising Piven’s Ari Gold as “watercooler television.” Having leapt one quantum level in the fleeting realm of Hollywood buzz, Piven’s name has suddenly pervaded the tabloids—which trumpet stories of him trolling bars and taking four girls home at a time. His response to the reports is “Really? I was at home watching Reno 911! in my boxers. But that’s fantastic. I’m the envy of guys everywhere. Thanks, New York Post!” —Marshall Sella


Sweater and pants by Valentino. Sneakers by Converse.

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Kevin Federline — Man of the House
Meet the American Husband: Trophy Edition. This year Kevin Federline, better known as Mr. Britney Spears, set a new standard in lifestyle achievement. With his perma-scruff and his signature tank-top chic, K-Fed cemented his role as America’s premier slacker spouse/sex symbol. And he’s certainly enjoying the ride, proving that he can not only hold his own but also capitalize on it, spawning an oddly charming reality series, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, and an upcoming album. —Kevin Sintumuang


Apron by Laraine’s Swimwear and Resortwear. Tank top by Hanes. Slides and socks by Adidas.

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Philip Seymour Hoffman — Chameleon
It’s late November and freezing in an old theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba. An audience of extras is gathered here, standing in as the throng of sophisticated Gothamites that has come on this evening in 1962 to hear the first public reading of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s work in progress. Philip Seymour Hoffman—his eyes framed by horn-rims, his more-delicate-than-usual body in a narrow-lapel suit—stands waiting in the wings. He walks out to the lectern. “Hello, my name is Truman Capote,” he says. The audience chuckles. It’s a disorienting moment. There is the scene being filmed, in which the crowd’s amusement at Capote’s transparent and disingenuous bit of self-effacement has been explicitly directed. But in the laughter there’s also a spontaneous delight. Imagine more than a hundred movie extras waiting around for hours to react with faked astonishment, only to be visited then and there by the real Godzilla. Hello, my name is Truman Capote. Of course it is. —David Rakoff


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Eliot Spitzer — Street-Fighting Man
Here, at last, is a Democrat who truly stands for, rather than against, something. Eliot Spitzer, who will most certainly win New York’s governorship next year, has often, during his tenure as the Empire State’s attorney general, been depicted as a superhero. Stock analysts who tout stocks they privately dismiss as “shit” because they want that company’s banking business? Busted! Mutual-fund managers who let favored clients trade after hours? Blammo! Bid-rigging insurance brokers? Kapow! Recording-industry execs who pump radio playlists with payola? Kazam! Such portrayals amuse, yes. But they also reflect that he is the kind of man children imagine their fathers to be (brave, knightly, omnipotent) and the kind of leader Americans have come to expect only on-screen (intelligent, incorruptible, impish). He is perhaps the only American politician who can say “I just have a desire to force people to be honest” and be greeted not with laughter but amens. —Andrew Corsello


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Best Directors — Focused Visions
The underground has always made the best breeding ground, which explains, in part, why 2005 is turning out to be such a memorable year for movies. This year three very different independent directors made movies for the masses. The results: David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, Doug Liman’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener were among the most engrossing movies of 2005. —Mickey Rapkin

The directors, from left: Fernando Meirelles, David Cronenberg, and Doug Liman.


Left: Jacket by Jil Sander. Turtleneck by Giorgio Armani. Pants by John Varvatos. Center: Coat by Giorgio Armani. Suit by Emporio Armani. Zipneck by Ermenegildo Zegna. Fedora by Borsalino. Right: Coat and pants by Dolce & Gabbana. Scarf by Loro Piana.

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Joaquin Phoenix — Line Walker
Playing music legends has gotten a lot harder since the days of “Kurt Russell is…Elvis.” After Jamie Foxx’s eerie simulacrum of Ray Charles, you can’t just grow out the sideburns and cop the moves anymore; you have to really sing. But when Joaquin Phoenix prepared to scale the colossus of Johnny Cash—whose very greeting, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” might make fainter actors quail—he began with something more basic than mannerisms or vocal timbre. He started with the songs. Phoenix’s star turn as the OG of American outlaw music in Walk the Line works so well because it draws on the dark psychological terrain of Cash’s imagination. “He would sing in his sleep,” says the 32-year-old actor, formerly known as the dark-horse sibling of the fallen River. “So that’s how we approached these characters—through the music.” Unlike Foxx’s uncanny Charles, Phoenix’s young Cash is an entirely new vision: laconic, out of sorts, with a hard, obsidian stare, more like Eminem in 8 Mile than anyone from the Grand Ole Opry. —Chris Norris


T-shirt, Double RL by Ralph Lauren. Jeans, Dior Homme by Hedi Slimane.

Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Malik Rahim, 58 — The Organizer
A week after Katrina hit, the Algiers section of New Orleans was in shambles. Hardly any food or water or ice, on the brink of race riots, grim. Help wasn’t coming, and Malik Rahim and the Common Ground Collective he cofounded weren’t going to sit by and watch as their community fell apart. So they went door-to-door asking what they could do to help. They took out trash, delivered food, collected medical supplies. Over the next month and a half, they grew into a full-time organization with more than 200 volunteers who have serviced 15,000 people so far, including 3,000 at a mosque that Common Ground converted into a health clinic. Rahim knows the collective’s work has just begun. “New Orleans has long been a gumbo of separate ingredients,” he says,“but I believe we’ve been given the chance to mix it together and make a bigger, better pot this time around.” —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Ed Blinn, 39 — The Landlord
In the days following the levee breaks, Ed Blinn watched the news from his home in Marion, Indiana, and did some simple calculations. The auto-dealership owner had dabbled in real estate over the years, and some of his apartments were vacant. When he saw how many people were going to be made homeless, he chartered two buses and took forty-eight of the displaced and impoverished—most carrying no more than a garbage bag of possessions—up to Marion, where he promised to house them for six months at no charge and with no strings. It was a chance for them to start over—and a month later, half the transplants have found jobs in Marion. Now many of them go down to Blinn’s house to eat sandwiches and watch the Colts beat up on whomever they’re playing that week. “These people are like family,” Blinn says. “They’ll be friends for the rest of my life.” —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Juan Parke, 42 — The Skipper
Juan Parke wasn’t going anywhere, no way. The Carrollton section of uptown New Orleans was his home, and besides, with every other able body in the neighborhood escaping to Texas or South Carolina or God knows where else, who was going to help those who did stay, mostly the old, the poor, and the stubborn? Using a found canoe to cut across town, Parke pulled many of his trapped neighbors out of their houses to safety, including one old woman whose heart was giving out as he was arriving. Word of Parke’s heroism spread fast, and before long, displaced Carrollton residents were text-messaging him requests to look after their pets or patch up their roofs. And he obliged, almost losing a finger to an untreated infection in the process. “Saving twenty people, seven dogs, and nine cats?” he says. “I think that’s a pretty good trade-off for one finger.” —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Derrick Robertson, 27 — The Buddy
Out of the post-Katrina muck came the strangest sight: six little kids, none older than 2, being led to safety up Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans by another child, Deamonte Love, only 6 years old himself. Nobody knew where their parents were, and until they could be found, it was up to Derrick Robertson and other members of the Baton Rouge Big Buddy program to make sure they were okay. Deamonte immediately took to Robertson, and for the four days before he was reunited with his family, they were best friends, playing hide-and-seek, joking around. Finally, Deamonte’s mother found him on a lost-children Web site. The other children soon reconnected with their families, too. Before he left crying, though, Deamonte wrote a card for his new best buddy: “To Derrick, From Deamonte Carlos Love. I like how you give big hugs and how you lift me up. You are a good friend.” —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Kevin Davis, 50 — The Bureaucracy Buster
Kevin Davis doesn’t do red tape. The St. Tammany Parish president knew that his below-sea-level constituents were living on borrowed time, so he’d forced his first responders to suffer through weekend-long hurricane-preparedness drills. Yeah, it was a pain, but wouldn’t you know the system worked when it had to. Despite being hit by the western end of Katrina’s eye, St. Tammany Parish never fell out of communication with its four hospitals, casualty rates stayed remarkably low, power was restored to critical buildings with remarkable speed, and within three days 90 percent of the parish’s 1,411 miles of road was open to emergency vehicles. When his endless days were over, Davis came home to the parish command center, where his wife and 2-week-old baby were living, since their own house was pretty much destroyed. “I’ll always feel badly that I wasn’t around much for my wife so early on in John Clay’s life,” he says. We think he’ll be forgiven. —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota

Heroes of the Hurricane: Katrina Saviors
Jon Donley, 50 — The Link
Before Katrina hit, the NOLA View blog was a distant outpost of the greater Times-Picayune empire, a place for Web editor Jon Donley to sound off on local politics. Then the T-P flooded out, production completely stopped, and the Web was the only thing the paper had left. Donley became indispensable, not only in helping to post the remarkable journalism that T-P reporters still managed to piece together but in turning his blog into a virtual lost and found. Tens of thousands of people would write about diabetic aunts stranded on St. Charles Avenue or about this guy they used to know in high school—does anyone know if he’s safe? Donley estimates that hundreds, maybe thousands of people were rescued or reconnected with loved ones because of the Web site.

He should know. After days of worry, he found his daughter Sarah that way. —Greg Veis


Photo: Peggy Sirota