There are expectations, and then there are expectations. The anticipation surrounding the imminent launch of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is not so much feverish as inflamed, not so much high as alpine. It’s safe to say that this is the most highly anticipated film of all time. And in the GQ office it’s been that way for more than a year. Well, in fact it’s been that way ever since it was announced that JJ Abrams would be helming the seventh Star Wars movie back in 2013.
Then there is the issue of redemption. Only a certified nutjob would admit to prefer- ring any of George Lucas’ ponderous prequels to any of his original three films and so the
franchise is balanced precariously on the edge of atonement. Most of us appear to have faith in the ability of Abrams to perform the resurrection shuffle; we cer-
tainly do here at GQ central and have spent the best part of a year planning the issue you’re holding in your hands right now (flicking paper or swiping your screen). As well as Jonathan Heaf’s frankly staggering interview with
Harrison Ford – possibly the most reluctant superhero in modern
Laugh it up,
fuzzballs!
May the fourth be with you...
GQ celebrates its own blockbuster sequel this month, winning our fourth consecutive Digital Magazine Award, scooping the Men’s Lifestyle Magazine Of The Year prize. Download our award-winning issues from the App Store.
Hollywood history – we have a fashion feature on John Boyega (already the subject of a GQ Style cover shoot), a piece by Stuart McGurk on Disney’s Star Wars industry, and an interview with the lovely Gwendoline Christie, who plays Captain Phasma in the upcoming film (though the GQ squad all fell in love with her when she first appeared in Game Of Thrones).
It is Boyega more than anyone – more than Christie, more than Adam Driver and even more than Daisy Ridley, who also have starring roles – who perhaps is going to have his life changed most by the film. As Boyd Hilton writes in his story on Boyega in the current issue of GQ Style, “In 2013, the day after he attended the premiere of prestig- ious literary adaptation Half Of A Yellow Sun – in which Boyega had a key supporting role – he was hanging out in Catford, south London, when he got an email from Abrams asking him where he was and what he was doing. Wanting to appear busier than he was, he told Abrams he was in an art gallery. Abrams asked if he could pop over to a café in Mayfair for a meeting. Boyega went home, changed into the blue suit he wore at the previous night’s premiere and took a cab. Along the way he filmed himself on his phone because he knew that, one way or another, this was a big moment. When Boyega arrived at the café, Abrams was talking on his phone and didn’t even acknowl- edge him at first. Eventually Abrams offered him a drink and started with the immortal words, ‘Here’s the thing...’”
Well, here’s the thing. We have, as the saying goes, gone deep on Star Wars.
Of course, there are some who think that the hype might be misplaced and that the world has gone as billy-bonkers for this sequel as it once did for Barack Obama. When Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday 20 January 2009, in front of the biggest crowd ever seen in Washington (and based on the combined attendance figures, television viewership and internet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by a global audience), expectations weren’t just big. They were
huge. Colossal. Positively Brobdingnagian. To say that Obama was seen as some sort of deity figure was not even remotely an overstatement.
But even after what is generally perceived to be a successful presidency, there are those who feel he has been a failure. It’s a personality thing more than anything else, as Obama has a tendency to come across as cold, unwilling or unable to act anything like a father figure. When David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, was interviewed on stage at the Hay Festival a few years ago, he portrayed Obama as a man who wasn’t particularly interested in pleasing people. At all, in fact. Remnick’s book The Bridge is one of the most incisive biographies of the president and in it he is portrayed as a man who is as aloof as he is stoic. “Here is a guy who just doesn’t care if people like him,” said Remnick. “He doesn’t care one way or the other. He doesn’t want to go for a beer with you, doesn’t want to put his arm around you, isn’t bothered whether you like him or not.”
In Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, John Podesta – the ex White House chief of staff of Bill Clinton and co-chair of Obama’s transition team – compared Obama to Star Trek’s Spock. He called him unsentimental, intellectual and ruthless. Podesta wasn’t sure that Obama felt anything. “He intellectualised and then charted the path forward, essentially picking up the emotions of others and translating them into ideas.”
Podesta reasoned that often a person’s great strength, in this case Obama’s capacity to intellectualise, was also an Achilles heel.
The political website Salon once compared Obama to Mr Spock, too. “Like Spock, part of what makes Obama so appealing is the fact that although he’s an outsider – ‘proudly alien’, as Leonard Nimoy once put it – he uses that distance to cultivate a sense of perspective. And while we’re drawn to Spock’s exotic traits – the pointy ears, green blood and weird mating rituals – we take comfort in his soothing baritone, prominent nose and ordinary teeth.”
To my knowledge, no one has ever compared the president to a cast member of Star Wars, which as far as I’m concerned bodes extremely well for the fortunes of The Force Awakens.
Enjoy the film, enjoy the issue.
EDITOR’S LETTER
Harrison Ford photographed for British GQ in Los Angeles by Kurt Iswarienko
Suit, £2,475. Shirt, £277. Tie, £146. All by Giorgio Armani. armani.com
Dylan Jones, Editor Follow us @britishgq
@dylanjonesgq
G JANUARY 2016
Harrison Ford is the most reluctant superhero in modern Hollywood history
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Photographs Rex
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Contributors
Jonathan HEAF
As well as interviewing Harrison Ford, GQ’s Features Director Jonathan Heaf inaugurates a new monthly column, Out To Lunch – in which he will eat, drink and conspire with the stars – on our coveted back page. “I have no idea how it will turn out,” he says, “but I’m going to make damn sure I have fun finding out.” This month:
Mark Ronson at The Ivy.