Adam, shiny waves neatly finger combed away from his face, glasses perched on his nose, crow’s feet gently crinkled in the corners of smiling eyes, the corners of his mouth pulled out and down by the small smile pulling at his lips, the deep valleys of his dimples bracketing his chin, the unbuttoned collar of his shirt framing the column of his neck.
In which I imagine what Adam might look like if we ever caught him in those reading glasses.
Back from his long sojourn in Reggio-Emilia, Adam’s making the most of his limited time in NYC between projects, participating in a Deadline Contenders panel for “White Noise” , hosting the annual AITAF Broadway event, and, continuing his Patron of the Arts era, he was spotted visiting backstage at Broadway plays not once, but twice. The first, and the one that this reference came from, was an especially sweet thing to see, since he was at “The Piano Lesson,” starring none other than his “BlacKkKlansman” bestie, John David Washington, whose kilowatt smiles at Adam could’ve powered an entire marquee. I just love knowing that he goes to see his friend’s plays, and that they go to see his!
He’s in his casually dressed up uniform of a black blazer over a black buttoned-down collared shirt, the first couple of buttons popped open, of course. I found it amusing to notice that Adam wore this exact same shirt to the AITAF Broadway event on 7 Nov– the buttons and the creases by the collar are very distinctive– though I do think it was a different blazer. Our frugal, capsule wardrobe king. The other thing he’s wearing, aside from the glasses we all made such a fuss about, is this small, sweet, almost star-struck smile; he’s wedged between John David and Samuel L Jackson, and I have to think that was a bit of A Moment, even for Adam, who’s found himself rubbing elbows with a lot of Hollywood royalty lately. His expression reminds me a bit of the slightly stunned look I’ve seen on a lot of Rat’s faces when they get a chance to have a photo with him, while still being so very characteristically Adam; where many of us would be grinning like loons, he maintains that midwestern polite aloofness that downplays just how happy he is, but the crinkles and the dimples give away the depth of his delight.
Proof of ongoing bromance aside, what made the Driver Hive swoon the hardest was an afterthought on Adam’s part; he’d tucked what looks like a pair of reading glasses into the V of his shirt collar. He wasn’t even wearing them on his face, but this was the first time we’d ever seen him with glasses on his person (as himself and not in character) AT ALL; a flurry of photomanips shortly followed, someone was pleased to learn they wore the same frames as he does (Boon, by Garrett Leight, in black, in case you were wondering), and then the inevitable speculation as to the prescription of said glasses. I’m betting, based on the fact that the only time I’ve seen evidence of him in contacts was when he was wearing the ones tinted blue for Maurizio, just how far away he tends to hold text he’s reading (seriously, watch him read “This Is To Say” in “Paterson,” the man had it at arm’s length and he was only 32), and the fact that he earned an expert marksman rating while in the military, that he’s a little bit far-sighted, and that being almost 39 means that he just can’t read that tiny type in the Broadway playbills anymore without a little help.
Photo used for reference was taken backstage after a performance of “The Piano Lesson” on Broadway in NYC by Bruce Glikas on 27 Oct 2022, and was edited by me. The original showed Adam’s glasses tucked into his shirt collar, surrounded by John David Washington on his right and Samuel L. muthafuckin’ Jackson on his left; I cropped the photo closer and actually used PS as it was intended to be used, lol, to put those glasses onto his face instead, which gave me the reference I needed to be able to paint them with a believable amount of detail. The only thing I fret about is that I don’t really know where he sits them on the bridge of his nose, so I just kind of guessed.
About 23 hrs of painting time. Glasses are complicated, and the overlay I was using made getting the fine shading on his dark clothes difficult.
