In 2020, Love Island host Caroline Flack became the series’ third cast member to die by suicide. As Season 8 of the revelatory reality show starts, we’re still wondering: What kind of person survives that kind of fame? And whose fault is it when they don’t?
Photo illustration by Sean McCabe
“I'm in a terrible position,” he says. “I'm Steve-O in my 40s.” The Jackass with a pure soul is (almost) ready to (eventually) stop hurting himself for our entertainment. All Steve-O has to do first is figure out how to stop being himself.
Photo by Rafael Rios
The most magnetic presence on The Bear (sorry, Carmy) brings sharp humor and actual knife skills to the breakout series.
Photo by Myles Loftin
Amid disturbing allegations, Bethenny Frankel’s calls for a union, and a whole lot of drinking, reality TV’s most popular stars are facing their demons.
Photos by Gillian Laub
The comic actor balked when he was offered a travel show. But hosting “The Reluctant Traveler” showed him the (mild) joys of leaving his comfort zone.
Photo by Heather Sten
The Access Hollywood tape came out four years ago and Billy Bush can’t move past it any more than America can. This is the story of what it’s like to be the sidekick in the defining event of your life.
Photo by Celeste Sloman
The stakes of the Kentucky Derby are crushing. Legacy, millions of dollars, literal life and death. Game Winner is a thoroughbred who doesn’t care about any of that.
Photo by Gail Fisher
From sex fasts and darkness retreats to ecstatic dancing and ayahuasca, Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus is searching for meaning in the ruins of traditional masculinity.
Photo by Andrew Hetherington
Gisele Baretto Fetterman has steered her kids and husband, Senator John Fetterman, through hell and back. What’s a few more fires?
Photo by Susana Raab
Some zoo residents do just fine without people. And some, like so many of us, are making it clear how much they rely on human interaction.
Photo by Matthew Bender
No actor has been better (or more telegenic) at expressing silent pain since Clint Eastwood and his chapped lips crawled out of the desert in A Fistful of Dollars. So you have to wonder: is Taylor Kitsch better off keeping his mouth shut?
Photo by Lauren Dukoff
In the last year, the real world permeated the world of reality TV. New York talked to Bravo producers, executives, and stars (and, of course, Andy Cohen about the growing pains of growing a conscience — including as a viewer.
Photo by Landon Nordeman
John Turturro is lionized for his portrayals of outcasts and scoundrels. But four decades into his career, the actor—and star of The Plot Against America—is still hunting for fresh ways to provoke and perplex.
Photo by Marco Grob
With a life story more astonishing than most Netflix dramas, Grant's scene-stealing turns in Search Party and You are waking the world up to one of Hollywood's most underrated talents.
Photo by Apollo Branagh
Filmmaker, producer, and writer Judd Apatow wanted to take a pass at his profile. What could go wrong?
Next to the other Kardashian-Jenner women, Kourtney always seemed a little different. Reluctant. Not so psyched to be keeping up. But we got the previously over-it reality star wrong.
Photo by Daniella Midenge
The jacked 'Law & Order: Organized Crime' star is 60 years old and embracing his inner viral moment.
Photo by Ben Watts
Covid is (hopefully, almost, please god) getting under control, and Dr. Anthony Fauci is nearing the end of his time in government. America’s primary care physician is sharing the lessons that will help us fight the next pandemic without him.
Photo by Jesse Dittmar
How America’s most fabulous character actor made Hollywood come to her.
Photo by Ryan Pfluger
In 2019, it was unforgivable for a presidential candidate to be boring. Maybe that’s our loss.
Photo by Stephen Voss
The presidential hopeful planned to fix America with love. Tough love.
Photo by Alex Welsh
Levy made quarantine bearable with his comedy of kindness, Schitt’s Creek. What’s it like to have the high point of your life happen during the worst part of most people’s, and how do you live up to it?
Photo by Kennedi Carter
Since he broke out in The White Lotus, Murray Bartlett has played a series of borderline-dangerous charismatics. On The Last of Us, he does what he has to to survive a zombie pandemic. In real life, it’s safe in sweet Murray’s arms.
Photo by Daniel Jack Lyons
Miles Teller is on a quest for greatness. Sometimes that can involve a bit of dickishness, too.
Photo by Vincent Peters
TV hosts used to set the mood between commercial breaks. Now, we want them to help us process complex social and political issues — which, it turns out, some of them aren’t great at. For The Washington Post Magazine, we talked to the best about how the hell you host 2022.
Photo by Art Streiber
Ryan Reynolds recognized in himself in a beloved character and spent a decade persuading doubters to let him blow up the superhero-industrial complex with the role of his lifetime.
Photo by Alasdair McLellan
Before he became the face of Star Wars, John Boyega was just some impossibly talented, humble, and exuberant kid from South London. Now he's humbly and exuberantly getting a bite with Harrison Ford, talking shop with Robert Downey Jr., and tackling racism in Hollywood.
Photo by Sebastian Kim
Last we heard from Avril Lavigne, it was 2014, and the pop-punk prodigy was (still) channeling teenage dreams. Then she contracted Lyme disease, took to bed — and, eventually, began to pray. But while she now has a Christian rock hit, Avril’s still got some partying to get out of her system.
Photo by David Needleman
How do you follow up one of the greatest performances in one of the best TV shows of all time? If you’re Bryan Cranston, you let go.
Photo by Paola Kudacki
The ombudsman of late night talks pretending to be the person you really are, why Trump is a bad talk-show guest, and if this too shall pass.
Photo by Mark Seliger
The most singular man in film explains what it means to be normal — or not.
Photo by Tom Craig
Parks and Recreation, Moneyball, Zero Dark Thirty, Guardians of the Freakin' Galaxy?! You're in for a ride.
Photo by Nigel Parry
Claire Foy is angry. So the day the Senate voted Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court, the new Lisbeth Salander (and star of ‘First Man,’ and ex-Queen Elizabeth II) walked to the Capitol Building and into the molten center of feminine rage.
Photo by Anais and Dax
Like the strong women she plays onscreen, Chastain has become as a powerful force for change in Hollywood, both as a producer and a vocal preacher for Time's Up.
Photo by Ramona Rosales
Bon Jovi didn't become Bon Jovi by accident. The man Tom Brady calls a "perfectionist" on what it takes to stay on top when time and body aren't on your side.
Photo by Aaaron Richter
The reality star-turned-socially conscious rapper makes the case that kindness can be entertaining.
Photo by Thomas Whiteside
It was a road trip from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara in a very handsome car (the Porsche 718 Boxster) to stay at a very handsome hotel (the San Ysidro Ranch) with a very handsome actor (James Marsden). The purpose was clear: to figure out why someone who should so clearly be a huge movie star isn’t.
Photo by Sebastian Kim
Jeff Goldblum is an icon to icons, inspiring everyone from Woody Allen and Christopher Walken to Sarah Silverman and Paul Rudd to live their most fun, most delightful, most Goldblum-iest lives. There might be a few lessons in there for you, too.
Photo by Peter Yang
Honored as “Notable Sports Writing” in The Best American Sports Writing 2019 anthology
During his 40-year comedy career, Garry Shandling created two of the most iconic and influential TV shows of all time. But instead of following "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "The Larry Sanders Show" with another television masterpiece, Shandling worked on something else: a pickup basketball game.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Nealon
As Matt Damon returns to the Bourne franchise, we decided to assemble this handy guide to the habits, quirks, and inner life of an honest-to-God screen legend, as told by George Clooney, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, and the other titans who know him best.
Photo by Sebastian Kim
In 2018, no one is clear what the line is between what’s pushing the boundaries of comedy and what’s offensive–and yet we live in an era where a single bad gag can derail a career. So GQ convened a special committee of comedy’s greatest minds—Kathy Griffin, Roy Wood Jr., Mike Birbiglia, Aparna Nancherla, and Hasan Minhaj—to discuss what you can and can’t say anymore.
Photo by Peter Yang
There’s a revolution happening on your television. The best, funniest comedies are being made by people with power over every step of the process, from writing to performing to living the lives that their shows are based on. You might even call them TV comedy auteurs. GQ gathered the creators responsible for the best stuff on the small screen for a summit on the state of televised comedy.
Photo by Art Streiber
With his breakout role on Silicon Valley and a new rom-com that's both romantic and comedic, we foretell Kumail Nanjiani's future will be filled with success and happiness.
Photo by Peter Yang
One of the greatest voices in hop-hop looks back on a career that almost derailed right at the start.
Wherein we get drunk with actor Jai Courtney.
Photo by Stewart Shining
Kanye's been doing this a long time. Since before Kim. Before Taylor. Before he said what every black person in America was thinking about what George Bush thought about them. Before the accident. Before Chappelle’s Show. He knows what he's doing. We do, too.
It’s been 14 years and 20 seasons. They’ve shown us their marriages and divorces, the births of their children and their businesses. They’ve stumbled; they’ve cleaned up. We know what putting all that on camera has done for them…but here’s what it’s done for us.
Photo by Jamie Chung
Busts by Brett Klisch/Peru Meridian Studios and Dave Cortes
Years after the disastrous OWN docuseries 'Lindsay,' Lohan attempted to reclaim her image with MTV’s reality series 'Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club.'
A very scientific investigation into the world of hotness and evil.
Are you watching Rick and Morty, one of the funniest, most outrageous shows on TV? Millions of die-hard fans are. So why are they making the guy who created it so miserable?
Photo by Art Streiber
After the blockbuster success of Kong: Skull Island, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts fled Hollywood to live the expat dream life in Vietnam. Then, one night at a Saigon club, he was brutally beaten by a mysterious mob of gangsters. Who were these monsters? Soon, he began directing something entirely different—an international hunt for the men who nearly killed him.
Illustration by Jimmy Turrell
Esquire's favorite new restaurants of 2015—a tribute to our late food editor, Josh Ozersky.
Photo by Andrew Thomas Lee
He wants it...but he doesn’t want to want it. Jessi Klein works through her husband’s complicated feelings about the ultimate status symbol.
Illustration by Guy Shield
Remember when “selling out” was the worst thing an artist could do? If you licensed your song to an ad, you were a sellout. If you let them make your novel into a movie, you were a sellout. If you wanted to make a commercial, you had to do it in Korea so no one here would see it. But now? Everyone does it. Oscar winners. Knighted sirs. Even Bob Dylan. And no one cares! The big risk now isn’t selling out—it’s doing it wrong. GQ teamed up with Danny McBride and his Vice Principals co-star Walton Goggins to demonstrate how to sell out without selling your soul.
Photo by Dan Winters
#oscarssowhite. Whitewashing. Lena Dunham. Is the racial gap in Hollywood narrowing, or are we just playing a slow game of catch-up? GQ looks at the state of race in pop culture, including Jordan Peele’s new racially tense horror movie, the not-so-woke trend of actors playing other ethnicities, and just how funny (or scary) it is to make fun of white people.
Photo by Peter Yang
Because someone has to honor movies that come out before October.
Illustration by MDI Digital
Seventy-one years after David Lynch’s debut in Missoula, 40 years after the premiere of Eraserhead, and 25 years after Laura Palmer said good-bye to Special Agent Dale Cooper, the most daring auteur in Hollywood goes to the one place that seemed off-limits.
Photo by Pari Dukovic
They steal scenes from stars. They’re dangerous even when they don’t play bad guys. And they definitely aren’t doing this for an invite to the Oscars. (Although you’ve seen some of them there.) These charismatic Hollywood misfits are the most unpredictable actors in the game.
Photo by Peter Hapak
GQ asked the best comedy teams of today to channel their favorite dynamic duos of the past.
Photo by Peggy Sirota
The new generation of video games attempts to give us what real life can’t: endless possibility.
Esquire investigate the state of the guys (and gals!) carrying guns on the big screen.
Photo illustration by Eddie Guy
