“Trevante Rhodes Does His Most Important Work Before 8 a.m.”

No better way to preamble this piece than by saying that speaking with Trevante Rhodes was a humbling experience; he’s a gracious man, to say nothing of his talents as an actor or his Herculean physique, and while we did do some press about his new movie (Susanne Bier’s Bird Box), we talked more about male identity in 2018 and how his work is helping change definitions of modern masculinity. This is a big topic for me. Maybe I’ll have more words on that at a future date, but put in short, male identity is both in flux and in crisis, and I think men like Rhodes, who embody both the “traditional” traits we look for when defining manliness (e.g., the dude is cut) as well as the contemporary traits we look for in redefining manliness (e.g., compassion, emotional vulnerability). 

I guess what I’m saying is: He’s my kind of guy. I don’t have a lot to say about the movie itself; I find post-apocalypse yarns that use a “back and forth” structure flipping from pre-apocalypse to post-apocalypse a bit exhausting, in the sense that we end up just waiting for characters’ inevitable demises with no suspense at all to make those demises feel meaningful. (It works best, frankly, when the only actors doing anything are Rhodes and Sandra Bullock.) But Rhodes is great in it, a real deal movie star in the making. Talking to him was a pleasure.

You can read the interview in full over at Men’s Health.

 

 

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