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I'm pretty sure this utterly priceless expression was prompted by the enthusiastic introduction of the moderator; I watched the entire press conference and the only time those brows flew up like this was at the mention of his coming to "support Jim Jarmusch's PATERSON" at Cannes in 2016.
It was an innocuous enough phrase, but it elicited such a remarkable reaction from Adam; those brows stayed up for a few seconds as he worked his way through the thought her words had clearly prompted. That's not him looking up at a reporter while they're asking a question, that's him doing the thing humans do when they're thinking; we tend to look up and break eye contact. I wonder what it was that ran across his mind?
Adam spent most of the rest of panel deferentially disassociating, face settling into his signature Resting Hades Face, his distant gaze cast downwards; the majority of the discussion was rightfully centered on the director, Spike Lee, and Adam was doing his best to quietly fade into the background. He was successful for the most part, which is quite an impressive feat given how large Adam was in comparison to Topher Grace to his right, and Spike on his left. At one point, Spike noticed how checked out Adam seemed to be and playfully tapped him on the knee, prompting a funny little exchange where Adam glanced at him sharply, RHF still in place for a split second before dissolving into an impish grin.
This is not to say that Adam wasn't listening; he very clearly was, because this wasn't the only meme-able expression captured by the press corps that day. Many of them were clearly reactions to something someone else had said, be they questions for the cast and crew, or responses by the other folks at the table. I was gently agonizing over which one to use as a reference when my friend asked me specifically if I could paint THIS one.
I'm so glad I took her suggestion. It's such a delightful expression; open and more than a little humorous, with his eyes so comically wide and his forehead so deeply furrowed by his eyebrows attempting to fly up into his hairline. I had more than one giggle as I worked on this, especially early on in the very rough "zombieland" stages, when I somehow managed to capture his startlement even before he had proper features.
Photo used for reference was taken on 15 May 2018 by Stephane Cardinale at the press conference for BLACKKKLANSMAN during the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
About 40 hours of painting time, of which nearly half was rendering the skin textures. I think they might be a little strong, but I decided to leave them that way, leaning into honoring all those tiny marks that make his face so uniquely and wonderfully imperfect. A lot of my recent portraits of him have been more contemporary references, so it was fun to get to paint a younger version of him.
It was an innocuous enough phrase, but it elicited such a remarkable reaction from Adam; those brows stayed up for a few seconds as he worked his way through the thought her words had clearly prompted. That's not him looking up at a reporter while they're asking a question, that's him doing the thing humans do when they're thinking; we tend to look up and break eye contact. I wonder what it was that ran across his mind?
Adam spent most of the rest of panel deferentially disassociating, face settling into his signature Resting Hades Face, his distant gaze cast downwards; the majority of the discussion was rightfully centered on the director, Spike Lee, and Adam was doing his best to quietly fade into the background. He was successful for the most part, which is quite an impressive feat given how large Adam was in comparison to Topher Grace to his right, and Spike on his left. At one point, Spike noticed how checked out Adam seemed to be and playfully tapped him on the knee, prompting a funny little exchange where Adam glanced at him sharply, RHF still in place for a split second before dissolving into an impish grin.
This is not to say that Adam wasn't listening; he very clearly was, because this wasn't the only meme-able expression captured by the press corps that day. Many of them were clearly reactions to something someone else had said, be they questions for the cast and crew, or responses by the other folks at the table. I was gently agonizing over which one to use as a reference when my friend asked me specifically if I could paint THIS one.
I'm so glad I took her suggestion. It's such a delightful expression; open and more than a little humorous, with his eyes so comically wide and his forehead so deeply furrowed by his eyebrows attempting to fly up into his hairline. I had more than one giggle as I worked on this, especially early on in the very rough "zombieland" stages, when I somehow managed to capture his startlement even before he had proper features.
Photo used for reference was taken on 15 May 2018 by Stephane Cardinale at the press conference for BLACKKKLANSMAN during the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
About 40 hours of painting time, of which nearly half was rendering the skin textures. I think they might be a little strong, but I decided to leave them that way, leaning into honoring all those tiny marks that make his face so uniquely and wonderfully imperfect. A lot of my recent portraits of him have been more contemporary references, so it was fun to get to paint a younger version of him.
