Adam Driver #81 (Burberry Hero)
Adam, mostly submerged, hair damp and tangled, tendrils swept across his face by the sea breeze, his deep, calm gaze holding ours, the point of his chin dipped enticingly below the water’s surface.
That expression is so intimate; it feels like he’s sharing a secret with us, poised to gently surge out of the water.
I have to laugh, thinking of Adam talking about how his younger self would hate him for being so bougie in his interview as a new Breitling ambassador, and now he’s representing not one, but TWO high fashion brands, while playing the scion of a third. If you had told us in January 2019 that Adam would be an ambassador for Breitling watches, playing Maurizio Gucci, AND the face of Burberry’s newest fragrance, all at the same time, I’m not sure we’d have believed you. OUR Adam? The man who still wears his boots from when he filmed “Tracks” in 2012? Who has three different colors of the same denim shirt on rotation on his days off? THAT Adam Driver?
According to Adam’s groomer, the ever incredible @akgroomer, Breitling filmed their promotion in June of 2019, and the Burberry spot was filmed in the Canary Islands in mid-September. With as full a schedule as Adam had right then (filming “Annette” while also promoting “The Report” and “Marriage Story” in the marathon that is the fall film festival circuit), Adam’s calendar would have been carefully planned out months in advance. Frankly, the fact that they managed to fit the Burberry shoot in at all is a testament to just how well organized his team is.
And what a shoot! A visual symphony of images of Adam, muscular and very lean for his role as the sinewy Henry McHenry, lit by the rosy blush of dawn as he sprints down a beach and swims with a horse in nothing but a pair of neoprene trousers. We know he’s athletic, but it’s really something else to see just HOW athletic, in slow motion, with every muscle so clearly visible; he is poetry in motion.
The official promo photos both have Adam gazing at the viewer with his characteristic magnetic gaze; I find it mildly unsettling because I feel so very carefully SEEN by him, and he’s not even physically present. The behind the scenes photos are beautiful too, with Adam in all his confident wind and wave tousled glory, interacting so gently with that proud horse. The whole shoot is very clearly playing on Adam’s sex appeal, but it also has a kind of quiet, introspective, thoughtful feel that I find remarkable in a production shot and directed by men. These are guys, and I’m very deliberately including Adam in this, who clearly understand and embrace the female gaze.
The icing on the cake, of course, is that the cologne in question is named “Hero.” If there was ever an actor to be promoting a fragrance that sounds like a very thinly concealed meta about at least one of the characters he’s played, if not his personal philosophy on life, the universe, and creativity, it would be Adam.
That Burberry turned him into a centaur is the cherry on top.
Photo used for reference was taken by Mario Sorrenti in Sept 2019 as part of the promotion for Burberry Hero.
About 10 hours of drawing time for this one. There was a lot of leaning on my trust in the process while making this one; I was not sold on it for the majority of it’s work in progress stages. Many thanks to flypaper_brain, rad_braybury, and the RAG disco for holding my metaphorical hand while I cringed my way through those hair highlights.
(Meanwhile, all the fan creators [writers and scented candle makers especially] are reveling in the fact that the scents chosen for this fragrance are all things that have been included in their works. Well, maybe not the juniper.)
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