informed him it had been looted from Mongolia. No, it was mostly bad top (price real-estate decisions. The grotesquely haunted LaLaurie mansion in upon request) New Orleans. The 16th-century Schloss Neidstein in Germany. The Givenchy 18th-century Midford Castle in England. The Gray Craig estate in Rhode Island. Leaf Cay island in the Bahamas. More mortgages than he could pants $1,395 keep up with and a bubble that burst on him, and everyone else, too. Dolce & Gabbana “I didn’t believe in stocks because I think they’re like gambling and they’re dangerous, but you can dump a stock,” he says, reflecting on the boots $1,295 2008 crash. “You can’t get out of real estate that quickly.” Nick Fouquet x Lucchese In 2009, he sued his former business manager for allegedly leading him “down a path toward financial ruin.” The money manager coun- sunglasses $75 tered with a suit about how he couldn’t control the actor’s profligate Carolina Lemke spending. Both suits were reportedly dismissed the following year. Whatever the case, Cage owed the IRS around $14 million and, to watch $18,000 other creditors, millions more. Bulgari Though there was a period of Cage’s life when he raked in bracelet $2,710 $20 million a movie, he grew up only in the shadow of wealth. Before Chrome Hearts directing Cage in the National Treasure movies, Jon Turteltaub was a classmate of his at Beverly Hills High. “He was a Beverly Hills out- sider,” he told me. “He lived in an apartment with his dad, not in a house, and he didn’t have that kind of rich-kid patina. In one sense, it worked really well for him because it made him different and inter- esting. But I think he also felt a little disconnected.” That wealth was just out of reach at home, as well. Cage would see his uncle Francis surrounded by opulence in Napa Valley, and even lived with him for a stint. In old interviews, Cage compares himself to the scheming orphan Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. “Oh, God,” he groans, when I bring it up now. “Maybe I was fascinated by my uncle’s lifestyle. My father was on a teacher’s salary. I would be in that little house in Long Beach, which was still a great house. But that notwith- standing, you go from there and you see Uncle’s house. I didn’t know what the cost of things were. I just liked what they looked like.” Eventually he made enough money to buy the things he liked to look at. He purchased a home for his dad in Newport Beach, too. “It was like paradise. We used to go have abalone and martinis at 21 Oceanfront for lunch and talk,” he says. “I knew I gave him some happiness before he went.” Things between them had been strained when Cage was younger, but they made their peace. “We were best friends,” he says. “We had this great relationship for years. That’s why I was so devastated when he left. He’d say, ‘Well, who’s Nicolas going to talk to when I’m gone?’ ” So who did he talk to? He smiles. “I tried to talk to Francesco, but I don’t know. I think I’m a little annoying.” What followed his father’s death and his financial ruin was a decade-long odyssey to do as many movies as possible for as much money as possible to pay his debts. Movies which sometimes had sum- maries that began, “John Milton escapes from hell and steals Satan’s gun.” In the years since going broke, Cage appeared in 46 movies, an experience he likens to “a conveyor belt.” (By comparison, in that same time, Brad Pitt made 19, Tom Cruise, 11, and Leonardo DiCaprio, 9.) Cage is matter-of-fact when he speaks about how he went from headlining blockbusters to going straight to VOD. “The phone stopped ringing,” he says. “It was like, ‘What do you mean we’re not doing National Treasure 3? It’s been 14 years. Why not?’ ” He would often get a circuitous answer, but he knew what the elephant in the room was. “Well, Sorcerer’s Apprentice didn’t work, and Ghost Rider didn’t really sell tickets. And Drive Angry, that just came and went.’ ” Alongside the downturn in his career, we started to see the cracks in his personal life. There were the incidents of public drunkenness; his divorce from his wife of 12 years; the four-day marriage he subse- quently entered into while intoxicated; the videos of him unwinding at karaoke after that ordeal, which were sold to TMZ. There was much more that we didn’t see. Namely, him grieving his father and trying to take care of his elderly (continued on page 86) 50 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
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THE WATCH WORLD BY SAMUEL HINE HAS NEVER AND SAM SCHUBE BEEN HOTTER, PHOTOGRAPHS WITH DEMAND BY BOBBY DOHERTY SKYROCKETING SET DESIGN RIGHT AS SUPPLY BY ANDREA STANLEY SLOWS TO A TRICKLE. BUT IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK—AND WHO TO TALK TO, AND HOW TO SPOT VALUE IN AN OCEAN OF EXCESS— THERE’S NO BETTER TIME THAN NOW TO FIND AN INVESTMENT- GRADE GRAIL. 52 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
O M E T H I N G S T R A N G E H A P P E N E D way back in spring 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic: Just as life ground to a halt, the vintage-watch market exploded. Soon, sales of new watches were climbing too. Things had been trending in this direction for years. The ongoing relaxation of dress codes meant that steel sports watches had replaced old-school dressy pieces as the objects of white-collar desire, and it began to feel as if auction houses were setting records for sales every week. Seemingly all of a sudden, collecting watches had become a lot more popular—and much, much trickier. ¶ But then something even stranger happened: A whole new way of thinking about collecting sprouted up. One that prizes flexibility and the ability to dip in and out of a notoriously booming market. One that elevates personal preference over consensus opinion. And one that feels much more like an art than a box-checking, check-writing science. What follows are eight new ways to go about building a badass watch collection in 2022. ←← Collecting Doesn’t low-stakes way to build (and rebuild) in what you’re getting—even if you’re of the most iconic watch models Have to Mean Forever your collection. Hodinkee, the watch picking up this Patek Philippe. in history, like the Audemars media brand, acquired pre-owned All the better, dipping into this world Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek PATEK PHILIPPE FROM HODINKEE platform Crown & Caliber in 2021. gives you the freedom to think of Philippe Nautilus. They are also, ANNUAL CALENDAR 5205G That site, along with peers like your collection a little more…fluidly. frustratingly, among the hardest ($53,925) WatchBox and Watchfinder & Co., “There are watches you’re gonna on earth to actually buy. But have made it easier than ever to do engrave your name on the back what Genta did after designing Collecting watches used to mean the hardest thing in watch collecting: of and never get rid of,” says Russell those watches is just as worthy of buying for life—and your choices painlessly buy something you’re into Kelly, Hodinkee’s chief commercial collectors’ attention: In the 1980s, were mostly limited to very new without fear of getting scammed. officer. “And then there are watches he introduced several Mickey watches or very old ones. But now, Reams of historical pricing data and that come and go.” The rise of pre- Mouse–emblazoned designs under what used to be a sketchy gray teams of authenticators, along with owned means that the latter will find his own brand. These were as market for pre-owned watches— return policies you won’t find on the a happy home—by which time you’ll whimsical as the novelty watches that is, lightly worn pieces produced gray market, mean that you can trust be onto your next watch. Disney had long licensed, but fitted after 1990—has turned into a with high-precision mechanical ←← Ride the movements and gold cases— Gold Boom making them killer collectibles. Now, Bulgari—which bought the OMEGA CONSTELLATION ($23,800) Genta brand in 2000—is carrying ROLEX SUBMARINER DATE on the designer’s legacy with ( $ 3 7, 9 5 0 ) a $16,400 Mickey Mouse mechanical watch that lets you It has long been the case that own a unique piece of an all-time collectors have lusted after designer’s work. the stainless steel versions of high-end sports watches like → Enter the Post- the Rolex Submariner and the Gender Watch World Omega Seamaster, while remaining considerably cooler on their golden AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK brethren. But now, says Wind SELF-WINDING ($48,900) Vintage dealer Eric Wind, that’s changing. Those less-loved gold It might sound obvious to say that, watches are “spiking relative historically, men haven’t collected to their steel counterparts.” You women’s watches. But with can chalk that up partly, Wind says, brands pumping out seriously to gold’s inherent value, along with desirable goods meant for slimmer the recent swings of the financial wrists, the only really obvious markets. “As markets get more thing to say is: It’s time to start. volatile, gold is a hedge,” he says. The stealthy new 34-mm black And in a world newly enraptured ceramic Audemars Piguet Royal by assets we can’t touch or own, Oak, for example, might be the there are few objects less fungible most covetable watch on the market than a gold watch, or one that gives right now, period. Fitted with a off such a pleasant eff-you vibe. proper mechanical movement— most small R.O.s have previously ← Catch the Unlikely had quartz-fired tickers—and Second Act of a cloaked in a murdered-out ceramic Watch Design GOAT case, the model is one of the most badass Royal Oaks ever. More GÉR ALD GENTA than a sick new piece, it’s a ARENA RETROGRADE ($16,400) blueprint for a post-gender watch world, where you can find true Swiss designer Gérald Genta wrist heat at any size. is responsible for birthing some
↑ Resist Circular Logic once credited the luxury house’s → Find Big Value and racing, some of the biggest. “spectacular shapes” with getting in Small Packages But when even a watchmaker like CARTIER PRIVÉ CLOCHE him into watch collecting in the IWC decides to release a scaled- DE CARTIER SKELETON WATCH first place. The Cloche de Cartier, IWC PILOT ’S WATCH down version of its iconic 46.2-mm (PRICE UPON REQUEST) above, might be one of the most CHRONOGRAPH 41 ($6,500) Big Pilot’s Watch (left), you can spectacular of them all: The case GRAND SEIKO QUARTZ be sure that the tide is turning. Maybe the easiest way to start shape looks wildly futuristic, but SBGX347 ($3,300) These days, if you want your building a distinctive-looking it was actually conceived in the ZENITH CHRONOMASTER REVIVAL timepiece to fly under the radar collection is to…buy distinctive- 1920s. The world of Cartier is full of EL PRIMERO A385 ($7,900) (or fit under your shirt sleeve), you looking watches. Take your cue here stuff like this— the brand makes no longer have to wear a dainty from Tyler, the Creator, who’s been watches that look like trapezoids, If you do a quick scan of the wrists dress watch. Zenith’s iconic sporty at the vanguard of a new generation tanks, and bathtubs, and one that in a hotel lobby in New York, L.A., chronograph (right) now comes of maverick collectors turning looks like it was painted by Dali. or London, you’re likely to see a in a relatively svelte 37-mm case. away from top-of-the-market sports Ingenious design isn’t a new thing whole lot of mass clanking around. And if you do need a subtle dress watches in favor of forward- in the watch world. You’ve just gotta The most popular watches on the watch, Grand Seiko’s SBGX347 thinking designs from the likes of think outside the circle to find it. planet are also, thanks to their roots (center) clocks in at 34 mm. old-world jeweler Cartier. Tyler in aviation and mountaineering 56 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
↓ Goliath’s Great. wizard of watchmaking Philippe → Having Your Own market are also the most coveted: But Wait Until Dufour produces a handful of Taste Is Cool Now Richard Mille has become one You Meet David time-only dress watches per year, of the hottest names in watchmaking which have prompted fans to OMEGA PLOPROF 1200M ($13,800) for ultra-expensive timepieces that AUTODROMO FROM HODINKEE make pilgrimages to his workshop RICHARD MILLE RM 35-03 blur the line between novelty and INTEREUROPA COPPERSATE in a Swiss village. Closer to entry- AUTOMATIC ($222,000) craft. Both Ploprofs and Milles have 1000 EDITION ($1,500) level is Autodromo, a motoring- spiked in value in recent years. But inspired line founded in NYC The Omega Ploprof (top) is not there’s a better lesson here: Cultivate Building a watch collection in 2011. Their Intereuropa exactly collector bait. It’s built to your own taste. Dive deep on a watch used to mean tracking down big Copperstate 1000, inspired by remain functional thousands of feet built for ultra-deep dives, or start game—legendary pieces the iconic Southwest vintage- beneath the sea. “It was always kind lusting after the RM mega-pieces produced by luxury Swiss houses. car rally, has plenty of grail of undervalued, compared to vintage that look like wrist Transformers. Now, though, plenty of other qualities: It’s beautiful, channels Seamaster 300s or Submariners,” Sure, it might be a good investment— watch designers are making the a rich design history, and there Eric Wind says. And yet it’s become but there’s nothing more fun than case that their models are essential are only 95 of them. Oh, and something of a grail for fans of developing your own unique taste, parts of a serious collection. it’s just $1,500. unorthodox design. In fact, some of and committing to it all the way. At the top end of the price range, the most outrageous watches on the
THE ATLANTA RAPPER WITH TWO CHART- TOPPING ALBUMS, AND A CLOSET SO CRAZY THAT RIHANNA DRESSED UP AS HIM FOR HALLOWEEN, WALKS US THROUGH THE STACKS (AND STACKS) OF DESIGNER GEAR HE’S LOVING RIGHT NOW. BY JEWEL WICKER PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIAN CODY G R E AT E S T FITS
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“This is me having fun A L I T T L E B E F O R E midnight on a Tuesday in January, self-aware about it. Maybe the best way to explain it is like and playing with not quite 24 hours after learning that his latest album, this: Ahead of his album’s release, Gunna began using colors. The beret thing DS4Ever, has topped the Billboard 200 chart, Gunna, the blue P emoji. He’d eventually explain that the letter is me. That’s my look. along with his mentor Young Thug, walks into a restau- can be shorthand for “player” or “paper”—but the mil- I think I’m going to rant in Atlanta to celebrate with the joyful excess that lions of Gunna fans who began using P immediately on drop some. I’d has become his signature. Steak Market is set for the social media didn’t really care about a specific definition. probably be going to occasion: Silver number one balloons allude to the Neither did collaborator Future, nor Smokey Robinson, Young Thug’s birthday accomplishment, while speakers blast Drake so loudly nor Walmart’s social media managers, all of whom started party wearing this.” that the tables shake, causing a wine glass and a vase to using it too. They just knew that it was, like so much else tumble onto the floor and shatter. Roughly 50 people Gunna does, a signifier of cool. I have only a base level ←← gather around two long tables in the upstairs section of understanding of what P is when we meet, but I’m clear a restaurant known on social media for a $690 24-karat- on one thing: This night in Atlanta embodies it. OPENING PAGES gold-coated steak. There’s no place he’d rather be. “To come back and the love is even Since the 28-year-old rapper was introduced to the coat (price bigger…it just feels bigger,” he says, world via a guest verse on Young Thug’s mix- upon request) before dropping what has become tape Jeffery in 2016, Gunna has used design- Bottega Veneta his catchphrase: “The world is er-themed rhymes and a canny sense for pushin’ P.” his own cardigan He’s collaborated with Lil Baby, Givenchy Though there’s another Travis Scott, and Drake, while private room that’s been pre- his fashion sensibility—often his own pants pared for Gunna and Thug hilariously heavy on the pat- Rick Owens to enjoy dinner away from terns, designer labels, and everyone else, they never sit berets—has inspired various his own shoes down to eat. And Gunna memes, and even compelled Dr. Martens never addresses the group Rihanna to dress up as him collectively or gives a last year for Halloween. If hat, stylist’s own grand, emotional speech. Gunna’s music is a bit overly Instead, he patiently and reliant on his Thug-indebted, his own sunglasses enthusiastically makes heavily melodic style, his Palm Angels his way around the room, cultural impact suggests that hugging and greeting each all watches guest individually. Despite we’re interested in him for and jewelry the excess—that golden steak more than his discography. He (throughout), hits the table wreathed in a is a rapper whose greatest tal- his own cloud of smoke—it’s a charmingly ent might not even be rapping. familial scene: Gunna’s mom, the He’s the kind of culture-setting, spitting image of the rapper save energy-dispersing celebrity for the fact that her locs are bur- gundy instead of brown, raps along who could exist only at this enthusiastically to his new song specific moment. “Livin Wild.” But the magic of Gunna, In other words, the event shares as I learn during our day the qualities that have helped turn together, is that none Gunna into one of the biggest rap- of it feels calculated or pers on the planet: He’s more than forced. He’s just warm. a little over the top with his music, style, and constant self-promotion, You get the sense that he but he’s also unusually warm and doesn’t want to be in the (text continued on page 66) 62 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
“I like to shop, “I’ve been fucking with especially at work. Burberry a lot lately. It’s I just bought those giving soccer. Aladdin. Bottega boots today. It’s some fly shit. Bottega’s different. It’s got some shit Everybody’s not hanging off the wearing them right bottom like a rug. now. They will be.” I’d wear this in a casual ← setting, like his own vest if I had a La Ropa meeting with a pants (price football upon request) team and shoes $720 we’re Bottega Veneta discussing a show that his own sunglasses I’m about Dior Men to perform.” ← shirt $1,190 Burberry his own pants Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello his own shoes Maison Margiela his own sunglasses Chrome Hearts APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 63
“Everything about “This Bottega this look is giving. bubble jacket costs This Givenchy hoodie like $7,000, and this is from Matthew M. Williams’s new is an eight-carat collection. He just ring—like I’m married. dropped it when It was a gift to myself. I dropped my album. I just bought another Number one album. ring as a gift to myself Number one look.” since this album went → his own coat number one. It’s Prada all-white flawless his own hoodie Givenchy stones with blue pants, his own pear-shape stones his own shoes that form a cross. I’m Maison Margiela a man of God, and his own sunglasses I feel like crosses are Louis Vuitton Men’s blessed. When I wear them, I feel protected.” 64 GQ.COM APRIL 2022 → jacket $6,900 Bottega Veneta shirt, stylist’s own his own sunglasses Palm Angels
glass-windowed private look like. While today Gunna room. He truly wants is discussed in the same tones to be in the mix with as Atlanta peers like Lil Baby and everyone else. This, it Young Thug, it’s clear he learned turns out, is who he’s from watching those earlier rap- always been. The out- pers grow their idiosyncratic fits? Those are the styles into mainstream trends. product of a lifelong love affair with getting In 2015, a mutual friend, Keith dressed: He’s been wear- Troup, introduced him to Young ing two to three outfits a Thug, the rapper who has most day and taking risks for influenced his sound today— as long as he can remem- and the friend who has reshaped ber. “My 11th-grade prom, the course of his life. “When I had double-strap Prada I didn’t know him, I had a feeling [shoes] on,” he says. When I ask I’d meet him because in Atlanta him how he was able to afford Prada as a teenager, that’s how it is,” Gunna says. “You he explains that he’s always had a hustler mentality. link up with n-ggas when the “I could get me some money,” he says. “I used to even go time presents itself.” He and Thug to consignment stores when I was younger and couldn’t grew closer following Troup’s really afford the shit.” death later that year. “We ain’t do His manager Ebonie Ward has worked with him since 2018, but she’s known no music or nothing. We was just hanging. And, shit, that’s how it started from there.” fashion- his personality.” “This that splah, right here. This that splah. Like I said, Burberry’s been coming.…” THESE PAGES coat $6,500 Burberry pants, his own sneakers $1,270 Rick Owens his own sunglasses Cartier until 8 a.m. about what a suc is a writer cessful rapper could or should 66 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
“This is high fashion “This outfit is what mixed with street I wore here—this fashion, which is your Air Force 1s. You can is my going-to-the- never go wrong with GQ-shoot Chanel [them]. You gotta have at least 100 pairs a jean outfit. I bought year. At least.” it out of Miami. → his own coat I’ve been buying mink his own jeans furs the last two Maison Margiela his own sneakers weeks. I got my mink Nike Dolce & Gabbana his own glasses slides on, too.” Cartier → 68 GQ.COM APRIL 2022 coat, t-shirt, and socks, his own his own denim jacket his own jeans Chanel his own slippers Dolce & Gabbana his own sunglasses Cartier styled by bobby wesley. hair by sierra leone for le’naturall way. barbering by stef detailcutz. grooming by danielle mitchell. produced by west of ivy.
A father and his children cool off in Jacobabad, Pakistan, where temperatures regularly exceed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 71
ulia Baum, a marine biologist at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, has been researching climate-threatened coral reefs for years. But recently she decided to make a change. “I’ve realized the best way I can help to save coral reefs is not to work on coral reefs,” she says. “It’s to work on the energy transition.” That’s because climate change is caused chiefly by the burning of fossil fuels, which now accounts for 86 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. And unless we rapidly transition to clean energy, all other efforts to save corals—or our warming planet—won’t matter. ¶ This reality is one that all of the earth’s inhabitants are now grappling with: If we want to preserve the places we love, we have to focus on moving away from fossil fuels immediately. The latest United Nations climate report, released in February, made it clear that irreversible destruction can no longer be avoided. The question is no longer “How can we fix climate change?” It’s “How much irreversible planetary damage are we willing to accept in order to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels?” ¶ Since the late 19th century, when, in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, humans started burning fossil fuels on a larger scale than ever before, the global average temperature has increased by about 1.1 degrees Celsius. Today, the desperate hope of climate scientists is that we prevent that number from rising to Jacobabad, Pakistan 1.5 degrees. Of course, some say that task is now impossible and that the best we can wish for is to limit warming to (previous page) 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Those two thresholds have come to define the discourse around climate change, One of the world’s hottest cities simply and either would represent a stunning reversal of current can’t stand to trends. ¶ When delegates met to confront the issue at last get any hotter. year’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, representatives The hottest temperature ever recorded on convened from the world’s biggest polluting nations. Each the planet, 56.7 degrees Celsius (134 degrees had already agreed to curb emissions in pursuit of two Fahrenheit), was in California’s Death Valley. But Jacobabad, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, objectives set out by the 2015 Paris Agreement: limiting might be the hottest—and perhaps the warming to “well below” 2 degrees and “pursuing efforts” most unlivable—city. Summer temperatures routinely exceed 50 degrees Celsius to reach 1.5 degrees. But some have argued that the Paris (122 degrees Fahrenheit); according to Agreement is flawed: Even though countries are required a recent study, Jacobabad—which has a to submit plans to reduce emissions, there is no way of population of 190,000 and a surrounding enforcing those pledges, and six years after Paris, we remain district of 1 million—is one of two cities on a disastrous course. One recent study projected that on earth where temperatures and humidity the world is on track to warm by 2.7 degrees by 2100 under levels have reached a point at which the current policies, a catastrophic scenario. ¶ So, without the human body can no longer cool itself, and has done so on four separate occasions. “My friends and family have died of heatstroke,” says Muhammad Jan Odhano, 43, who works for a Jacobabad-based will to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, what comes next? community organization dedicated to Around the world, profound transformations are already improving access to health care and education. “This is normal for us. It’s part under way. Ski slopes are bare. Storms are worsening. of our routine.” According to Odhano, many Regions are becoming inhospitable for human life. In one people relocate in the summer, but the nature future, the world warms by 2 degrees or more and these of his work demands that he and his family trends continue to their catastrophic ends. In another, we remain in the city, working at night or in pull the hand brake now and limit warming to 1.5 degrees. the early morning and resting from 10 a.m. Which scenario we encounter will depend on the thinnest of to 5 p.m. “Every year we feel it’s hotter than margins. As Baum explains, “People don’t realize that every the last,” Odhano says. “It’s unfair. We are not contributing many greenhouse gases in Pakistan. We need a political movement against this evil. I have lived in Jacobabad for 30 years. This is my native place. I call on tenth of a degree matters.” Here are some places where they people to come and see.” Indeed, if current matter the most. trends continue, much more of the world will see what 50 degrees feels like. — E M I LY AT K I N 72 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
JACOBABAD, PAKISTAN: MAT THIEU PALEY. Line Coral reefs are vital to both pollution and fishing are and breeds those that LINE ISL ANDS: BRIAN SKERRY. Islands human societies and the relatively limited in the survive best, creating ocean’s ecosystem—they vicinity of the research site, hyper-resilient organisms. Off the coast protect shorelines from so Cobb felt rising ocean But super corals are more of this Pacific storm surges and erosion, temperatures were the likely likely to survive if warming paradise, a coral and serve as nurseries for culprit. The impact has doesn’t get much worse. reef teems with marine life. They’re also already been devastating, “If we push the climate wildlife—but frighteningly imperiled she says, adding, “I can’t system to 2 degrees Celsius, teeters on the by warming waters, which even imagine what it would we’re talking about 1 percent brink of destruction. produce conditions that look like at 2 degrees of reefs surviving,” Cobb turn them a ghostly white Celsius.” If warming can says. “That makes it less and expose them to a be limited, however, there likely that coral-resilience blanket of algae. That’s might be hope for the corals engineering efforts will what Kim Cobb saw one day that remain. Scientists succeed.” She says it’s in 2016 when she swam up like Hollie Putnam are essential to limit warming to the reef in the central engineering so-called to 1.5 degrees, a scenario in Pacific’s Line Island chain super corals with the which up to 30 percent of that she’d been studying ability to withstand higher reefs could survive on their for 18 years. A heat wave ocean temperatures and own. If that happens, one had killed or bleached acidity levels. Putnam, of the world’s wildest reefs 95 percent of the corals. “It a marine biologist at the could be strengthened. If it was carnage,” the Georgia University of Rhode Island, doesn’t, even the savviest Tech climate scientist places coral species under engineering intervention recalls. Disturbances like climate change stressors won’t be enough. — E . A . APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 73
Napa Valley, Last July, Julie Johnson once did. Winemakers well-equipped to handle California walked around her vineyard also encounter another dry conditions, saw a in the Napa Valley town of challenge brought on by 20 percent reduction in Wildfires and St. Helena. The grapevines wildfires: Smoke can taint crop yield last year. And droughts are looked exhausted, and the grapes, giving wine an Napa Valley wine industry devastating nearby land was scarred by ashy aroma. “The taste groups estimated that the vineyards, wildfires. But it was hardly of wine is changing,” says fall 2020 Glass Fire alone tainting shocking: The western U.S. Kimberly Nicholas, a cost the region $1 billion. vintages, is in the midst of a mega- sustainability scientist at Those losses might only be and poisoning the future drought, the worst in over Lund University, in Sweden, a taste of what’s to come. of the great American a millennium. California’s who hails from a family “The difference between wine region. 2020 wildfire season of winemakers in Sonoma. 1.5 degrees Celsius and burned 42 percent of the Some local vintners have 2 degrees Celsius is the land in Napa County. And conceded that certain difference between life now warmer temperatures long-favored grapes like and death for many people are changing the soil, and Pinot Noir simply don’t and places around the the wine itself. flourish in the heat and world,” says Nicholas. have replaced them with “Wine producers are smart Grapes are defined by varietals like heat-loving and adaptable, but there their terroir, so even small Grenache. Johnson is are limits to adaptation. shifts in the soil matter. adapting, too, making her I worry that the landscapes According to Johnson, the vineyards more resilient and wine industry I grew drier earth in Northern by improving the health up with will not exist in a California doesn’t absorb of the soil. But even her 2-degree Celsius world.” water with the same organic vineyard, which is spongelike quality as it —CAITLIN LOOBY 74 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut, Canada Sea ice is vanishing near this Arctic island, imperiling an Inuit community’s cherished tradition. NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA: SAMUEL CORUM/AFP/GET T Y IMAGES. QIKIQTARJUAQ, NUNAVUT, CANADA: JONAS BENDIKSEN/MAGNUM PHOTOS. THE ITALIAN ALPS: TOMASO CL AVARINO. The roughly 15,000 Inuit who inhabit creates more open water, and more storms warming scenario is the only one where the Qikiqtaaluk, a region mostly composed of Arctic occur when there is open water,” says John sea ice cover stabilizes in the Arctic,” Walsh islands between Greenland and the Canadian Walsh, a climate scientist at the University says. “That’s coming through in the climate mainland, are known for their resilience. In of Alaska, Fairbanks. “The storms then kick model simulations loud and clear.” The climate 2019, the Canadian government formally up waves that flood the coast and cause models, however, have made another thing apologized for years of traumatic colonial erosion.” According to Walsh, the island’s sea clear: “Once you get to 2 degrees Celsius to practices, including the forced separation of ice can still be preserved, but only by swiftly 3 degrees Celsius, the ice goes away in the parents and children. But now the Qikiqtani limiting warming. “The 1.5 degrees Celsius long term.” — E . A . are facing a different threat. They depend on the sea ice for hunting, which serves important economic and cultural functions. That ice is now deteriorating across Baffin Bay, including the area around Qikiqtarjuaq, an island home to just under 600 people. Locals acknowledge that reduced and less stable sea ice has made hunting more difficult. As an island, Qikiqtarjuaq is also vulnerable to the sea’s lapping waves. “Melting sea ice Italian Alps Snowless slopes and shuttering resorts could mean the collapse of this classic European ski destination. One of the ski regions most affected by climate change is the Italian Alps, where some 200 resorts have already shuttered. Marcello Cominetti, an extreme skier in northeastern Italy, reveals the impact that warming temperatures have had on his native mountains: I live in a village in the Dolomites, in a 350-year-old wood cabin. From my window I see our largest glacier. I remember what it looked like years ago. I’ve lived in my house for 40 years. When I look at it now, I understand how melted it’s become. I can see it with my eyes. During the winter I ski every day. Today I climbed a mountain and made a wonderful descent. For these climbs, I dress lighter than I did before. Years ago, it seemed to me that we would see temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius for many days in winter. Now it seems like just two to three days. I don’t know for how many seasons it will be possible to continue. Artificial snow is expensive. And there are many valleys here where the only economy is skiing. I have a lot of friends who make a living in the mountains. I live in a wonderful place. But I am worried. — A S TO L D TO E . A . APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 75
Yakutia, With temperatures that the difference between life Yakutsk, in the YAKUTIA, RUSSIA: KATIE ORLINSKY. MIOMBO WOODL ANDS, SOUTHERN AFRICA: MARTIN LINDSAY/AL AMY STOCK PHOTO. ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA: JOSE JIMENEZ TIRADO/GET T Y IMAGES. Russia regularly reach minus and death,” says Vladimir larger region, 40 degrees Celsius, Romanovsky, a geophysicist where gullies have In one of the Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia, at the University of Alaska, opened up in the coldest regions is known as the coldest city Fairbanks, who has studied collapsing earth. on earth, a thaw in the world. Like much of the Yakutian permafrost. Those include of the permafrost the surrounding Yakutia Particularly concerning, the Batagaika is releasing region, the city sits atop the Romanovsky says, is a Crater, pictured massive levels permafrost, a layer of soil type of permafrost found here, about one of methane—and maybe that traditionally remains in Yakutia, which contains kilometer across something worse. frozen year-round. But the abnormally large amounts of and 50 meters permafrost here has begun ice. “If it’s a huge amount of deep. These open to thaw, setting in motion ice, then all this foundation wounds in the a potentially catastrophic will turn into a lake,” he says. earth’s surface are sinking. “The difference “Imagine if it’s on a slope.” releasing other between 1.5 degrees Celsius dangers, including and 2 degrees Celsius, for The effects of this high levels of this kind of permafrost, is thawing appear even methane, further more dramatic outside of contributing to climate change, and long-frozen bacteria and viruses. “That’s potentially very dangerous,” Romanovsky says, noting that fragments of genetic material from smallpox can survive in permafrost for hundreds of years. No matter what, Romanovsky says, Yakutia will need help. “Even 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming could destabilize the permafrost,” he notes. The difference is that, with a 1.5-degree Celsius warming, engineering solutions to refreeze the ground are more likely to succeed. In a 2-degree Celsius scenario, he says, those solutions become “more expensive and probably not practical.” — E . A . Miombo Woodlands, In this cradle warming scenario would be unsuitable for Southern Africa of biodiversity, up to half of all species in most of the region, climate change and at 2 degrees Celsius most of the Miombo 76 GQ.COM APRIL 2022 could upend Woodlands would be unfit for up to three- the ecosystem— quarters of its species. Of additional concern and spell to Price are the insects underpinning the entire disaster for a host of ecosystem. If pollinators die out, the region’s endangered species. food supply would be undermined; limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius could prove Stretching across southern Africa, the critical for insects, which appear to be more Miombo Woodlands—named after the sensitive to warming than plants and animals. umbrella-shaped miombo trees—are home to elephants, lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, The impending diminution of the buffalo, antelope, and giraffes. But it’s woodlands’ biodiversity is playing out against becoming a less hospitable habitat: Rainfall another shift: The countries of the Miombo is now more sporadic and intense, while are experiencing rapid population growth, the shifting climate threatens to increase contributing to loss of the woodlands, which wildfires and imperil a number of the region’s have shrunk by an estimated 30 percent charismatic megafauna, like the critically since the 1980s. According to Natasha endangered black rhinoceros, already long Ribeiro, a scientist from Mozambique threatened by poaching. who has studied the region for decades, the woodlands’ distinctive biodiversity According to Jeff Price, a climate scientist supports 80 percent of the region’s at the University of East Anglia who has people—a population that’s increasingly studied the region, even a 1.5-degree Celsius placing a strain on natural resources. As Ribeiro puts it, “Climate change is bringing us one more challenge.” — C . L .
Antigua and The world’s islands are, of assign legal responsibility effects of climate change Barbuda course, under threat from to higher-polluting nations is an act of charity,” says rising sea levels, but many for the adverse effects of Browne. “It ought to be The island of those same places face climate change. “The basic a legal compensation.” nation rocked another peril exacerbated principle of international Palau has since joined the by hurricanes is by climate change: law is that the polluter commission, and Akhavan fighting back— hurricanes. That danger pays,” says Payam Akhavan, says that other small island and lawyering was made shockingly clear the legal counsel to the states are in the process of up—against the in 2017, when a pair of commission. “You pollute, joining; together they will industrialized superpowers hurricanes tore through you pay. You cannot use develop a legal strategy. that pollute the most. Antigua and Barbuda your territory in a way But Akhavan hopes to days apart; Irma damaged that harms other states.” bring his clients more than 81 percent of Barbuda’s Akhavan contends that financial justice. “They buildings. “Our region was nations like his have no are telling people that decimated by Irma and other choice. The Paris what’s happening to the Maria,” Gaston Browne, the Agreement includes no small island states today country’s prime minister, mechanism to enforce is going to happen to all of tells GQ. So in October, signatories’ pledges to curb us tomorrow,” he says. “By the country joined with their domestic emissions. listening to them, I think the Pacific island nation “Industrialized countries we can avert this collective of Tuvalu to create a new believe that assisting us catastrophe for the rest of commission that will seek to to adapt and mitigate the humanity.” — E . A . APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 77
He found fame playing a ghost in Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. Now he’s an android in After Yang, holding his own opposite Colin Farrell. In the human realm, though, he’s simply Justin: an actor of rare and sensitive gifts, with deep and wide-ranging ambition, working hard to ready himself for his moment. BY YANG-YI GOH PHOTOGRAPHS BY YOSHIYUKI MATSUMURA STYLED BY JON TIETZ
H. Min has been reading a lot two years in one lockdown or another. (The entire Umbrella cast of self-help books lately. “I just was sequestered in Toronto for eight months last year under strict finished Atomic Habits by James COVID-19 protocols.) There were other, stranger touches too: Last Clear,” he says, as we stroll the March on his birthday, Min woke up to learn that a group of South hazy, sun-dappled side streets of Korean fans had chipped in to buy him a billboard in Seoul. “It lit- L.A.’s Los Feliz. Min is a devoted erally just said ‘Happy Birthday Justin’ with this huge photo of me,” reader—he took speed-reading he says, chuckling. classes as a kid, speaks glow- ingly of the writer Lydia Davis, And then there’s the small matter of his being Asian. Min has always and is right now, in fact, leading been proudly Korean American (the H is for Hong-Kee, his Korean me toward his favorite book- name), and his career is lifting off as Hollywood casts Asian men in store, where he’ll praise the lat- more and bigger roles. But that newfound abundance of available est Kazuo Ishiguro novel. But work, coupled with a terrifying eruption of anti-Asian sentiment since the self-help kick is new. “They the start of the pandemic, means grappling with his ethnic identity— were a little woo-woo for me,” he and what the roles he chooses mean—in a way he’s never had to before. admits, “but for some reason I’m getting into them now.” The self-help books are…helping. “For eight or nine years, I was The reason actually seems pretty obvious: At 33, Min is in the midst purely in survival mode to get the next job,” Min says. “For the first of the kind of star-making run that promises to upend his place in the time in my life, I can ease off the accelerator a bit and try to grow in world. He’s earned raves as the title character in the A24 sci-fi drama some other areas.” After Yang, and this summer brings the third season of The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s X-Men–meets–Royal Tenenbaums smash. Min’s Which is to say, if things continue to break right for Justin H. Min, stock is currently skyrocketing among two highly bankable, extremely we might not merely have a new grade A heartthrob superstar on loyal demographics: film Twitter dorks and comic book geeks. It’s a our hands. We’ll have one who’s spent his ascent preparing for his very good, very wild time to be Justin H. Min. moment in a way we’ve never quite seen before. But Min has not exactly emerged in traditional Hollywood fash- ion. He understands that he’s now a known quantity—his 2 million I N S O M E W A Y S , Min had a typical Asian American upbringing in Instagram followers are proof—but he’s also spent most of the past Cerritos, a heavily Asian suburb of Los Angeles. His parents emi- grated from South Korea; in the States, his dad worked for a local Korean paper, while his mom opened a dry cleaning business. “All I remember growing up was my parents working all day,” he says. “It was tough.” Min’s grandmother lived with the family and helped spark his storytelling bug around the dinner table, “regaling us with these incredibly moving, animated stories about fleeing North Korea, experiencing the Korean War. I was enraptured by it.” But unlike many Asian Americans, Min didn’t grow up feeling like a minority. “My school was predominantly Asian and Korean,” Min says. “I went to a Korean church on Sunday. I was surrounded by my culture.” At school, the white kids “were the ones trying to assimilate, trying to eat more Korean food.” As a result he “never felt stifled or insecure about who I was, or my identity, or speaking up.” In his mid-20s, when Min decided to try acting, another tight-knit Asian community helped him find his footing. A chance meeting with the team behind Wong Fu—the Asian American production house that helped launch Randall Park and Harry Shum Jr.—resulted in his first starring role. “It was a trash can commercial,” Min recalls with a smirk: a comedy sketch, paid for by a trash can company, that collected mil- lions of views on YouTube and Facebook. It helped Min find a manager. The meaning of that opportunity isn’t lost on him. “It seems like a small thing,” Min says, “but we were never even able to be seen as leads of a trash can commercial. It’s so important for us to have those spaces, to experiment and try things and show the world what we can do. It gives an opportunity for people to see us outside of these Asian spaces.” With time, the confidence Min gained from growing up and working in Asian-led environments carried over to his work in Hollywood. “As I came into this industry and realized it was dominated by a white majority, I was used to keeping my head down, doing my job, not causing a fuss. Nobody questioned that,” Min says. “But the moment I started to speak up and advocate for myself, it was a shock [to others].” Following the first season of The Umbrella Academy, he raised a few concerns with the producers over how his character was devel- oping. “There’s a tendency in a lot of the scripts I read to write Asian American characters who are perfect,” he says. “They have no flaws. It feels like a bit of an overcompensation for all the negative portrayals of Asians onscreen. As an actor, that’s not interesting. You want to see people you can relate to, and we’re all broken. We’re all messed up.” Those conversations, Min says, were productive and received well—just as they were a year later (text continued on page 84) 80 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
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APRIL 2022 GQ.COM 83
“I grew up speaking the language. I went to Korean school on Saturdays. Does that make me Korean? I don’t know. The exploration is part of the journey.” The director explains that Yang, with his bowl cut and butchered name, represents “a corporation’s construct of Asian-ness”—a powerful metaphor for virtually every Asian American’s pursuit of identity and belonging while feeling caught between cultures and communities. “His journey is my journey,” Min says of Yang, “and I think a sim- ilar journey to all of us who are Asian in America. Look, I grew up speaking the language, I grew up eating Asian food, I went to Korean school on Saturdays. Does that make me Korean? I don’t know. It’s something I grapple with all the time. I mean, I look Korean, I look Asian. Is that what makes me Korean? I don’t know if I’ll fully get to an answer, but the exploration is part of the fun and the journey of it all.” when, at the height of the George Floyd protests, Min sent an email O N T H E W A L L next to his bed, hanging from a single strip of blue to Umbrella’s entire production. “We have this diverse cast, which is painter’s tape, Min keeps an emotion wheel. It’s a pie chart with doz- really, really great, but I just felt like we could work toward more diver- ens of labeled segments, running the full gamut of the emotional spec- sity behind the camera,” he recalls writing. When the show reconvened trum: “Inspired” and “Insecure,” “Powerless” and “Peaceful.” He began last February to shoot its third season, Min says the crew was the most using it a couple of years ago at the suggestion of his therapist, who diverse he had ever worked with. thought it might be healthy for him to name his feelings. But recently, Min has taken the exercise even further. The gesture was subtle, but noticed by colleagues like his costar Elliot Page. “Obviously, I wish we were at a point where he didn’t have “I’ve been able to get to a place where not only can I identify [these to stand up, where he did not have to be in that position,” Page told me emotions] but really allow myself to feel them and release them,” Min via email. “[But] it’s incredibly admirable, because speaking up isn’t says. “I think I had a tendency, because I’m quite cerebral, to identify easy. It’s a reflection of his sincerity, courage, and genuine care.” a feeling and then just write about it and why I might be feeling that way. But I’m really trying to engage in this practice of, ‘Okay, once If Min’s goal is to explore Asian American–ness onscreen, then I identify it, I don’t have to try to rationalize my way out of these feel- After Yang is a pitch-perfect launchpad for the next phase of his ings. Let me just feel them.’ ” career. Written and directed by the South Korean–born indie auteur Kogonada, it’s a sparse near-future tale in which Min plays Yang, an He applies the same sort of rigorous study to his work as an android purchased by a family to help raise and connect their adopted actor. Lately, he’s been thinking about the economy of expression daughter with her Chinese heritage. The film explores the same ques- practiced by some of his favorite artists, and trying to find ways to tions of identity that Min is fascinated by: In one scene, a character apply it to his own technique. “Lydia Davis—some of her stories literally asks, “What makes someone Asian?” are like three sentences long,” he says, “and they are so powerful.” He remembers watching in awe as Kogonada whittled After Yang The film and performance are beautiful, though I did have one seri- down in the editing room. “He kept cutting away and cutting away ous quibble, which is that the movie pronounces Yang’s name—my and cutting away. Even after it premiered at Cannes, he kept cutting name—all wrong. It’s correctly pronounced “yahng,” almost like the it down.” opposite of old, while in the film (and seemingly everywhere else in the Western hemisphere) it rhymes with “gang.” But Min called the Min wants to imbue his performances with a similar quality. “It’s mispronunciation a carefully considered decision. so much better to leave less on the table, leave more mystery,” he says. Everything he does—every role, every emotion, every self-help “Kogonada and I had multiple conversations about it,” Min says. book—is in service of the idea that, by becoming secure in his own “Should we try the real version or the Americanized pronunciation? identity, he might be able to better inhabit others. While observing We decided that it served the story that these Western parents would his After Yang costar Colin Farrell do take after take on set, he learned mispronounce a name they saw written as y-a-n-g. They wouldn’t make that the thing that distinguishes true movie stars are the smallest, a concerted effort to pronounce it authentically.” subtlest choices: a twitch of the eyebrow, a flick of the finger. It’s a level he’s inching a little closer to every day. “I don’t need to show you so much,” he says. “You can project whatever you want onto me.” yang-yi goh is gq’s style editor. 84 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
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F I N DI N G PAUL HAR NDE N NICOLAS CAGE C ONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 8 because of the relevance of that idea of slow C ONTINUED FROM PAGE 50 reward, slow fashion, something personal.” five years. “He never talks by phone,” I thought of younger designers, promoting that mother. “I’ve got all these creditors and the McDonald said. “The only time I get to see same ethos, in response to the terrible waste IRS and I’m spending $20,000 a month trying him is when I go to the U.K. The best way to issues that have only swelled since Harnden to keep my mother out of a mental institution, see him is just to go and drop in.” started his label: Aogu Otsuka, of Andrew and I can’t,” he says. “It was just all happening Driftwood, who makes new garments from a at once.” I asked what McDonald made of Harnden’s stash of hand-spun yarns found in an aban- secrecy and he laughed. “It’s very strategic,” he doned U.K. warehouse; Emily Bode, with her Cage was adamant that he would never file said. ‘His father owned an advertising agency, thrifted materials; and John Alexander Skelton, for bankruptcy, even when people kept telling so he had a very keen sense of how to advertise who develops the majority of his fabrics from him to press that button. And he wants to clear his own image.” scratch, and who regularly collaborates with up a misconception about the work he took various handweavers and lone knitters. on to prevent that from happening. “When The photographer Stuart Pitkin, who has I was doing four movies a year, back to back to worked with Harnden on photo shoots and Skelton, who graduated from Central Saint back, I still had to find something in them to films on and off since 1987, said a similar thing. Martins in 2016, does not let his clothes be sold be able to give it my all,” he says. “They didn’t “With most fashion houses, there is usually online and refuses to let retailers discount work, all of them. Some of them were terrific, an emphasis on presenting the clothes in an them, terms that are often like “trying to get like Mandy, but some of them didn’t work. But accepted way. Paul was more interested in cre- blood from a stone,” he said. We met at his I never phoned it in. So if there was a miscon- ating a beautiful mystery,” he said, referring studio in East London. His black trousers and ception, it was that. That I was just doing it to “glimpses…the sheen on a fabric, a detail jacket were his own but looked like antiques. and not caring. I was caring.” emerging from a shadow.” He admires ’80s designers, like Harnden, Dawson, and the House of Beauty and Culture, Eventually, it added up. About a year and I told McDonald that I still hoped to speak who didn’t want to be “corrupted” by the a half ago, he finished paying off all his debts. with Harnden directly. “Getting an interview mainstream, he said. But, unlike Harnden, he out of Paul? He would never do an interview doesn’t want to be a “hermit” or “a complete But it was almost as if there was some kind with anyone,” he said, calling this principle separatist.” He doesn’t believe that communi- of eerie Faustian bargain involved. The role “very clever” and part of Paul’s image. cation is pointless. Younger consumers, under- that allowed him to write that big check to the standably, want to know a brand’s values, he IRS and finally be free and clear? It was the I decided to write Harden a letter, sourcing said. “It’s good for people to understand how role of playing himself. his address through a lengthy trawl of public clothes are made,” he said. “To know why cer- financial records. I chose my materials care- tain techniques take time, why the fabrics mat- W E M E E T AG A I N on a rainy and dark evening fully—heavy, deckle-edged white paper—and ter, the time we take in making pieces as good in New Orleans. explained that I just wanted to ask a few as they can be, in not cutting corners.” things. As I walked to the post office in the The staff at Antoine’s, an old French Quarter rain, I began to feel a vague sense of resent- A F E W DAYS L AT E R, I was walking home stalwart, buzz with palpable excitement, as if ment. Who even is this guy? Should it be this across North London and I saw a missed call welcoming a visiting dignitary. Cage enters hard to talk about shoes? I felt the whole thing from an anonymous number on my phone practically gliding in, wearing an emerald was pretentious, try-hard. On the walk back, and presumed it was a scam. On my journey, green suede jacket and putting in an order for I began pondering doing a Strong, and getting I thought about secrets and meaning and their Baked Alaska before even sitting down a train to Brighton to find Harnden in person, wistfulness. I thought about how, beneath the because he wants me to try it. He seems about before remembering that turning up at his giant umbrella of the fashion industry, there five inches taller. He’s in his element here, ready door would be an invasion of privacy, and that are people on the fringes, working hard to pre- to hold court in a small private room with ruby Brighton is a city of nearly 300,000 people, and serve tenderness and connection. I thought red walls and a wine cellar. I remark, by way the notion of running into someone I would about something Elena Dawson had told me of paying a compliment, that I feel as if we’re barely recognize in the pub or on the street was about how clothing can make you feel: “You in “The Cask of Amontillado.” “That story has insane. It was not lost on me that I had now can look at images of it online, can see pic- crossed my mind more than a couple of times managed to get the Emmy-award-winning tures. But it’s really not until you try it on that when I visited my uncle at the winery,” he jokes. actor Jeremy Strong to talk to me about Paul you feel it—feel like it’s part of you.” Harnden but could not persuade Paul Harnden He’s in town doing preproduction work to talk to me about Paul Harnden. My view Later that night, my phone rang again. It for Renfield, an upcoming monster movie pivoted; whether his committed secrecy was a was a woman’s voice. She asked if I’d recently directed by Chris McKay. He’s playing Dracula, sincere quest for privacy or a constructed ploy written a letter to Paul Harnden. I sat up in for real this time, and he has an idea of who for intrigue, Harnden was a genius. my chair and gasped, as if being contacted by he’ll be channeling. “August Coppola’s com- royalty, or the recently deceased. She asked ing back,” Cage says. “And he’s coming back R I C H A R D M I L ES, the retail director at London’s what I wanted. Her voice was matter-of-fact, as Dracula.” store-cum-gallery Blue Mountain School, firm—like a pharmacist or schoolteacher. describes a “feeding frenzy” each season when I told her that I really wanted to speak to Paul There are ghosts everywhere. This is new Harnden pieces arrive. He feels that Harnden. I told her I knew he didn’t give inter- what happens when you have a history with Harnden is as relevant today as ever. “Paul views, but I thought it was a great story: This a place. Cage has lived in New Orleans and looks to small British manufacturing. He’s try- great designer, beloved by other designers, filmed some of his most memorable mov- ing to hold on to a tradition. There is no mass and yet—“Nobody knows who he is?” she said, ies here. Here is where he “began to under- production. It doesn’t come off a conveyor belt finishing my sentence. stand more of the romantic world,” he says. dripping in marketing and trends,” he said. “He “This is a city that can have that dark side. was a pioneer. And he has sustained, partly “Exactly,” I said. I asked if there was a It’s very present. And the reality is, we both chance she could set up a quick call, a hand- know I’m probably never really going to leave ful of questions. She said nothing. I told her it New Orleans.” was such a unique way of operating, to refuse to bow to pressure. She wanted to get off the phone. I wanted to stay on it. I told her that, to me, it was highly unusual. “Yes,” she said. “It is.” She wished me a good evening. And right before she hung up she said that, maybe, she’d be back in touch. lou stoppard is a writer based in London. 86 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
NICOLAS CAGE CONTINUED Well, yes. Because of the tomb. misconception that I’m crazy, which people Jerry. I’m talking about Disney,” he says. “I’m not going to talk about that,” Cage seem to enjoy, the madman or whatever—to “They’re like an ocean liner. Once they go in says, drawing his hands up and smiling. which I simply say you can’t survive 43 years a certain direction, you’ve got to get a million I say I saw it for myself the day before and in Hollywood or star in over 120 movies if tugboats to try to swivel it back around.” he seems surprised, but nods. “Well. You can you’re crazy. You’re not going to get bonded. talk about it.” They’re not going to work with you,” he says. He may reunite with his uncle for the first Okay, here goes: When Cage ultimately time since 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married— passes, he will be buried in the historic St. “You’ve got to be healthy,” he adds. “My doc- they’re talking about a small role in Coppola’s Louis Cemetery No. 1, which is one of this tor says I have the liver of a 13-year-old choir upcoming epic Megalopolis. “I’m just going to country’s most exclusive places to spend eter- boy, you know?” focus on being extremely selective, as selec- nity. His tomb is a flawless white pyramid, tive as I can be,” he says. “I would like to make about nine feet tall. On the afternoon I visit, Over dinner, he downs enough Diet Coke every movie as if it were my last.” the sun bathes it in golden light, illuminat- and black coffee to fill the Mississippi, while ing the inscription omnia ab uno. Latin for exercising monk-like restraint around his Death is certain, and he is prepared, but “Everything from one.” A crow flies overhead, charbroiled oysters and soft shell crab. (“This there is an opportunity now to rewrite his beating its wings furiously, as our tour guide isn’t really on my diet right now,” he says, way out. His debts are paid. His career has hams it up: “There are no human remains in sighing. “I’m trying to become the Thin White re-railed. He has remarried and is welcom- this tomb…merely the remains of his career!” Duke for Dracula.”) Alcohol is completely off ing new life. But he still keeps the past close. (“Recently, some of his work has been getting the table when he’s working. “I have to focus, He and Shibata wed on his father’s birthday. better,” he admits in the next breath. “I can’t and it leads to anxiety,” he says. “It’s so hard When they finally take their honeymoon, wait for the new one coming out, where he to retain the dialogue if you’re doing that.” it will be to Venice. And the reason why plays himself.”) After we disperse 30 minutes How then, does he account for his drunken involves yet another great Nicolas Cage story. later, I ask the guide for some local tomb incidents? “It’s like an eraser on a chalkboard, gossip. He says the word around town is that but it’s a slippery slope because I don’t drink His father had always wanted his ashes a cemetery guard once saw it get struck by often,” he says. “And when you do that, you’re scattered in the Grand Canal. Cage used to lightning, that Cage reportedly shelled out out of practice.” own a yacht, so this would have been a rel- $250,000, and that the actor bought it to atively easy task, but he had to sell it before lift a curse placed on him for purchasing the The marriages, too, have been some of the August died. Soon after his father passes, LaLaurie mansion. To be clear, the guide adds, more salacious parts of his story in the public Cage starts having these recurring dreams of this is all a load of malarkey. imagination. Twenty-seven-year-old Shibata August playing kick the can in the street. Cage is his fifth wife. “I am a romantic, and when takes this as a sign: His father is waiting and “I’m just going to focus on I’m in love, I want to give that person every- waiting in the afterlife for his son to fulfill thing I can,” he says. “It’s my expression of his promise. being extremely selective, saying, ‘I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ And this is it for me.” So he secures the box with his ashes and goes as selective as I can be. He shakes his head and looks down at his to the airport. “Now I’m like a live wire,” he says. plate, speaking to himself more than to me. “I don’t want anything to go wrong. I’ve got to I would like to make every “I mean, this is not happening again. This is accomplish this. And I’m in full-on grief.” The it. This is it.” box with his father’s ashes is going through air- movie as if it were my last.” port security at LAX and they’re pulling him He’s thinking about the fresh start he’s aside to inspect it and he’s insisting, “No, it’s my The tomb is held up as the conclusive exam- been granted. About how he probably dad. It’s not a bomb. It’s my dad.” ple of his eccentricity, the ultimate example of wouldn’t have ever done something like Pig, Nicolas Cage Being Nicolas Cage. But I want the performance that definitively broke his He finally gets through and catches a you to consider that he made the purchase in long spell of dismal reception, if he had con- plane to Frankfurt. When he lands there, 2010—for $20,000, by the way—after every- tinued on the blockbuster path. About how, he meets a helpful airport employee and thing started going downhill in the year prior. after more than a hundred movies, that was catches a glimpse at her name tag: Savannah. That his father had only recently died. That the one where he finally felt fully seasoned. Savannah! That’s where his dad was living beneath every one of his enigmas is something He remembers something an old friend before he moved back to California. much more straightforward. And that he does, would tell him. “Sean Connery used to always at least, say this much: “I’m told that in some say, ‘You have to know how to enter the room. Okay, he thinks. Maybe he’s trying to say parts of Asia, like Korea, that if you make your When you’ve entered the room, they notice,’ ” something to me. And Savannah gets him on plans in advance, that it actually means good he says. “In that movie, I thought I had this tiny prop plane to Venice. “The whole luck and you have a healthy life. Also, it’s just entered the room.” time,” he says, “I feel like he’s talking to me, a wise thing to do to take pressure off your almost like a radio.” family. Who wants to be dealing with all that Cage wants to keep going with the indies. when someone’s passed on?” “I enjoy making movies like Pig and Leaving He lands and boards a water taxi, and he Las Vegas more than I enjoy making movies can finally breathe a little, as he and his dad It’s understandable that he doesn’t want like National Treasure,” he says. He waves float down the centuries-old canal. “And now to get into it, considering the other miscon- away suggestions that National Treasure it’s midnight, and it’s a full moon, and it’s ception top of mind tonight. Such as: “The 3 is happening, after I mention that Jerry Halloween,” he says. “And I’m pouring his Bruckheimer told me they were developing ashes in the water.” And then? “All the church something. “When I talk about fair-weather bells start ringing—all at the same time.” Life. friends in Hollywood, I’m not talking about Death. Rebirth. Everything from one. gabriella paiella is a gq staff writer. GQ IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT © 2022 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. VOLUME 92, NO. 3. GQ (ISSN 0016-6979) is published monthly (except for combined issues in December/January and June/July) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. 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FINAL SHOT For our cover story on STYLIST, SIMON RASMUSSEN. Nicolas Cage, see page 38. PHOTOGRAPH BY JASON NOCITO Jacket, $5,040, by Tom Ford. Tank top, price upon request, by David Samuel Menkes Leather. Pants, $1,595, by Dolce & Gabbana. Belt, $61,600, by Chrome Hearts. Boots, $1,295, by Nick Fouquet x Lucchese. Sunglasses, $490, by Rhude x Thierry Lasry. Ring, his own. 88 GQ.COM APRIL 2022
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