THE MAN’S MAN – WORLDLY, RUGGED, HUMBLE, AND DAMN, DOES HE MAKE IT ALL LOOK COOL.
Josh Duhamel is just one of those guys you can’t not like. He’s cool, funny, polite, kind, well-mannered. Hell, he showed up 5 minutes early to set and even the animals loved him. Who can argue with a horse? It was another beautiful day in sunny California (can you believe it?). This time we were on a 40-acre ranch just outside of Los Angeles with nature abound. Our Editor-in-Chief made quite the entrance in a blacked-out helicopter that ended up being so cool we used it in the first shot. I felt like I was on the set of one of the Transformers movies with Josh jumping in and out of that helicopter (guess he does his own stunts, ha!). It was shaping up to be a great shoot, but oh man, of course I had to open my mouth and boy did I blow it with one bad Black Eyed Peas joke. Which, by the way, I’m still cringing at (sorry Josh). And because I’m female, naturally I will think about this for the rest of my life. When I ask my subjects to finish the sentence “A Gentleman Always…” I get a variety of different responses. Gerard Butler told me “protects his woman,” and Bryan Cranston said “puts the seat down,” so this question is very much open to personal interpretation. But this time, I’d like to answer it for myself: A gentleman always behaves with grace, tact and kindness, making sure people feel comfortable no matter the situation. Which is exactly what Josh did when he laughed off my joke and didn’t make me feel like an idiot. I found myself thinking, that wow, this guy is a class act all around, someone good-humored who just rolls with things. And I was correct. This was further solidified when our groomer for the shoot didn’t show up, something that would normally throw a cover shoot into a spiral. Thankfully our photographer, John Russo, is always prepared. He dug around inside his car, found some hair pomade, tossed it to Josh, and we went on with the shoot. Crisis averted. Now let’s get to the choppa!
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN RUSSO
ART DIRECTION BY DOUG MCLAUGHLIN
WORDS BY KARA STUDZINSKI
VIDEO BY HANNAH WILSON
STYING BY FRANCISCO AND EDDIE BARRAGAN
HELICOPTER COURTESY OF OUR FRIENDS AT IEX HELICOPTERS
