Hotness is a State of Being: Why We Need to Stop Casting Conventionally "Sexy" Actors in Romcoms

This week I'm wrong about what makes a great romcom lead, plus the new Dune movie

Like it or not, this is peak sex appeal.

This week, a semi-viral tweet asked a monumentally important question:

Correctly, about half of the quote tweets are endorsing When Harry Met Sally, which would also be my choice for the honor. I could write a whole post about how much I love that movie, but instead I’m going to take the opportunity to think about one of (many, many, many) reasons WHY When Harry Met Sally is so good, and about which more recent romcoms have followed its example—and which have not, to their detriment.

A key element of When Harry Met Sally’s appeal is that Billy Crystal as Harry is not conventionally hot. That isn’t to say he’s not hot—he’s extremely hot in this movie! You believe that he is sleeping with women left and right and that Sally is hung up on him for much of the film. But his hotness comes from the writing, his charisma, and from his specific hotness in his relationship with Sally. Meg Ryan is obviously perfect and stunningly beautiful at all times, but it also helps that she is (in the movie and real life) beautiful in a way that feels organic and approachable rather than artificial and abstract. The same qualities as Crystal/Harry enhance her within the context of their relationship so that their attraction and connection FEELS incredibly natural and compelling and believable. The fact Billy Crystal (a perfectly good looking man) is not a hunk who could be on the cover of Men’s Health allows his inner hotness to shine even more brightly (I should note that historically unequal beauty standards for men and women have allowed a lot more men who aren’t conventionally hot to play these kinds of roles, although it can happen—more on that later).

A lot of modern romcoms suffer from gorgeous and uncharismatic leads. To be clear, charisma is not the same thing as acting ability or attractiveness. It’s a magnetism, an energy—and it has to be sourced from all aspects of a film—especially the performances, the direction, and the writing. But it is the ONLY thing that ultimately matters in selling an onscreen romantic relationship. When Harry Met Sally is drenched in charisma at every level.

A recent romcom—that I enjoyed a little, and is loosely based on my favorite Shakespeare, and had good actors, and also EXTREMELY conventionally attractive actors—but was just missing that secret sauce was Anyone But You, the Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney vehicle that came out a couple months ago. Powell does have some of that charisma, Sweeney does not, in my opinion—but the film absolutely is less than the sum of its parts because it can’t quite capture the magic required. Invisalign and abs do not a compelling romcom make.

More and more movies—especially movies going straight to streaming, where most romcoms seem to be relegated these days—are casting very hot and very bland leads to anchor an interesting concept, and suffering as a result. I also see a lot of chatter on twitter every time a new hot person gets famous as people scream “put them in a romcom!” But I’m sorry, as much as Austin Butler is a good actor (and was actually maybe my favorite part of Dune 2, where he was delightfully weird and menacing) and also a certified hottie, he does not have the quirky lovability to make me believe and care that he is hilariously and stupidly in love.

The best romcom stars of all time are hot for reasons beyond (or in spite of) their hotness. Tom Hanks—good looking, but not a supermodel. Julia Roberts—like Meg Ryan, literal perfection but in a tangible way. Hugh Grant—handsome but in a bookish rather than lifeguard style. All of them are transcendentally hot because of their aura rather than their faces. Look at some of the best romcom stars of recent years, like Kumail Nanjiani and Lana Condor and Mae Whitman—extremely pretty people who also look like they’ve eaten pasta at some point in their lives, and make me believe they could pull any human being on planet earth because they are so dang charismatic. I already wrote last year about how Jack Black is a great and hot romcom lead because of his general energy.

Let me give 3 more examples—one old, one less old, and one relatively new—of movies that understood that their leads didn’t need to be Giorgio Armani models to be funny and in love and wildly compelling.

Palm Springs is my favorite romcom of the last ten years, partly because of its sci-fi concept and its sharp writing but also because Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti have some of the best smoldering chemistry and individual magnetism ever put to film. Samberg spends the whole film with his ab-less stomach hanging out of an open shirt and Milioti does everything possible to make her character radiate depression and self-loathing, and I defy anyone to watch the movie and not think they’re the sexiest people on planet earth.

I’m stretching the definition when I say White Men Can’t Jump is a romantic comedy—partly because it’s also sneakily devastatingly sad—and I’m not going to act like Wesley Snipes and Tyra Ferrell aren’t conventionally attractive (although as the examples I’m listing in this post prove, who is determined to be “conventionally attractive” and also “capable of leading a major romcom” has historically and presently been linked to whiteness and wealthy, white standards of beauty and likability). Snipes and Ferrell’s relationship is also bringing more drama than comedy to this particular movie—but Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez as a chaotic, fiery pair of hustlers have truly insane levels of chemistry and hotness that is entirely rooted in their dialogue and performances. I would risk it all for Perez’s character, who is smart and funny and sometimes mean—not just because Perez is beautiful, but because every move she makes is steeped in her force of personality. And a balding, out of shape, often pathetic Harrelson makes their relationship not just believable but heart-wrenching because he matches her at every turn.

Finally, I was recently introduced to Harold and Maude (which is also just a great movie and something more than a simple romcom) and which my friend Hope wrote about and recommended better than I’ll be able to. But its leads—a skinny, pale boy with a hairdo uncomfortably close to a bowl cut (unfortunately relatable) and an almost-80 year old woman—become unbearably charming on their own and devastatingly aspirational in their connection to one another over the course of an hour and a half. There has never been more compelling proof that hotness and romantic viability have nothing to do with conventional beauty standards.

And this is how it works in real life! At the end of the day, when you have a crush on someone or fall in love it has nothing to do with their biceps or their teeth or how they look in a bathing suit. It has to do with the fact they make you laugh by just existing in their particular wonderful way, that they can smile or look at you and your stomach flips over, that sometimes when you’re talking to them you’re so overwhelmed by how cool they are that your brain shuts down and you say something completely idiotic. That is hot! It doesn’t happen every day! And it’s something that we all experience, and that we all deserve to inspire in someone else—to drive one another crazy by just being ourselves.

And that’s why great romcom leads aren’t determined by raw aesthetics. Romcoms are fantasies—they’re about what we all want and deserve—and we simply aren’t all born to effortlessly look like Austin Butler and Zendaya. But we are all capable of being the most charming, confident, compelling versions of ourselves in all our quirks and imperfections.

And that, if you ask me, is pretty hot.

A Quick Note About Dune

The people (one person) have demanded (sent a text) asking for more thoughts on Dune 2. I saw it twice this weekend and its the best theater-going experience since Return of the King. The scale, the performances, the questions it forces you to confront as you enjoy the spectacle—it’s truly a masterpiece.

But my two favorite performances were not Timmy Chalamet and Zendaya or Rebecca Ferguson and Florence Pugh—although they were all excellent. It’s not even Anya-Taylor Joy being perfectly cast as an alien-ish psychic adult-baby and getting paid probably a monstrous amount of money to appear in one single shot.

The first is Javier Bardem as Stilgar, memes of whom are sweeping the internet for his comical and irrational belief in Chalamet’s Paul.

Bardem’s ability to make the audience literally laugh out loud shocked me, but also add to the film’s commentary on fanaticism and religious fervor. Stilgar is funny until he is blindly following Paul on the path to war and genocide at the cost of his people and culture. His humor transforms into something truly frightening.

The second, as I’ve already discussed, is Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, a villain who is always frightening and bizarre but, in an inverse to Bardem, finds genuinely funny moments as the film progresses. His reaction to Paul’s use of physical and psychic power over the Emperor’s witch-in-chief is somewhere between arousal and and amusement and admiration and might be my favorite moment in the film. I’ve never liked Butler much before, but he’s officially won me over.

Go see Dune: Part 2.