party and bullshit

gq:

On The Cover This Month: John Slattery

Our second of three April 2012 cover subjects, for our special inaugural Style Bible issue. Click here to read GQ director of editorial projects Devin Friedman’s profile of the Mad Men eminence grise. Below, a quick bit from the story:

“I was going to get Old Rip Van Winkle,” he tells the waitress. That’s a kind of bourbon. “But I’m told you’re out of it. Anything resemble that?” Something called Eagle Rare might be up his alley. It arrives, served with a beautiful hunk of ice that might be sold at an airport gift shop as a paperweight. He admires this ice cube. It’s a great ice cube. That’s also what he’s like. A guy who knows about bourbons and good ice cubes. Which is the same, at this moment, as a guy who knows about a good waxed cotton jacket. (It turns out we’re both wearing the same brand of waxed jacket. It’s like we’ve been reading this magazine.)

Lolol the caption! I love GQ.

gq:

Lunch With Omar In Our Cafeteria

He sure turned heads, too. The Wire’s (and Boardwalk Empire’s and Community’s) Michael Kenneth Williams grabbed a quick meal with GQ’s Mark Anthony Green to talk about being funny, getting a shoutout from Obama and keeping that scar. Click here for the full read. A small sample below:

GQ: After working on The Wire for two seasons, you were evicted from your apartment. What happened?
Michael Kenneth Williams: When I booked The Wire, I was in a very dark place.  I was searching for a way out, period. And I didn’t know what my next move was going to be. I had left the [acting] business, and I was working at my mother’s daycare in Flatbush. It was a point where I didn’t care about much and that was my state of mind when I went in to read for Omar. When I got the part, it took the focus off myself and my personal problems. With that came a lot of irresponsible behavior, especially financially speaking. I had a lot of time on my hands and wasn’t working as much in the second season, so I started getting into some reckless behavior. Lots of partying and a little too much spending money and at the end of season two, I had to put my shit in storage and move out. But one thing I didn’t do was give up my apartment in Brooklyn, so at the end of season two all my shit was in storage in Baltimore and I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the projects of Brooklyn. And that hurt.

GQ: You were 25, right when the incident…
The fight.

GQ: Yes, the fight, that left you with that infamous scar. Did you have plastic surgery?
Yes I did. But not to remove it, just so I wouldn’t keloid.

GQ: So could they have removed the scar permanently?
I never asked that question, really. When it first happened, I had to maneuver some things to be eligible for a plastic surgeon. I didn’t have health insurance at the time. So he just stitched me up. That was my main concern.

GQ: If you could have it removed today, would you?
No.