In the middle of my conversation with John Early, he gets a call, then another call, and a text too. This is HBO Max’s COVID-19 test team for Research group, Currently filming his fifth (and possibly final) season in Brooklyn. Early exits his Airbnb in Clinton Hill to get dabbed, then returns. ” It’s crazy. It looks so chic, ”he says of his test door service. “I always feel so embarrassed when people in this building, like, see me in the hallway. And I’m like ‘sorry!’ He wiggles his fingers in an affected wave.
Early is an appointment on Research group, a quirky black comedy about a few self-obsessed young New Yorkers who commit murder and then try to cover it up. He’s lively and gestural on Zoom, punctuating his words with his innate theatricality in a way that turns a conversation into a performance. “People are drawn to it,” he said of the show, before bringing his face closer to the laptop, fixing the black little eye of the camera. “If it’s even true! Who can say these days, no one releases it Numbers!“
Research groupHBO Max’s move made the series much more accessible and made Early a street celebrity. When his parents visited him in Brooklyn, people literally “screamed” across the street – “not like a Beatlesmania,” he hastens to add, but manic enough to identify him even if he wore a mask and hat. “It was really nice, honestly, for my parents to see him. ‘Yeah, it happens all the time.’ He absolutely does not. “
The craze is due to Early’s character Elliott Goss, a pathological celebrity-obsessed liar who has a knack for saying things that no one else is willing to admit. In season three, he became a liberal talkhead on a Fox News analogue, facing a conservative talkhead played by Chloe Fineman. During the fourth season, the Network Leaders decide that Elliott can anchor the entire series on his own, provided he becomes a Republican. Elliott makes a big stench about his politics and walks off, then in a literal turn, abruptly turns around and states that if he gets a long list of financial demands, he will. Shortly thereafter, the network began selling guns bearing the Elliott show’s logo. It’s especially funny because if you know anything about Early’s politics, via social media or interviews, you know he’s a socialist – a straight talker who has raised money for the chapter. from the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America.
Summer 2021 is quite different, however. On the other side of the 2020 election and the pandemic – despite COVID testing! – Early, like many of us, is rethinking social media and the way he participates in politics. In a wide-ranging conversation with VF, Morning dishes on Research group season four, democrats, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Carmela Soprano.
Vanity Fair: Elliott’s costumes are always to die for, and her outfits this season are particularly awesome. I saw you went to Seth Meyers last year with a translucent blouse from her wardrobe. How often do you do this? Does your style match hers?
John Early: I made that right away, I want to be clear. I am angry with them! I was never given a piece of Elliot’s wardrobe. I stole some socks. And I will write it down. I stole socks and underwear. But usually just because I forgot to take them off at the end of the day.
That’s all Matthieu Simonelli, who makes the costumes. I wish I had some kind of fashion sense. I mean, I think I unwittingly got to some kind of recovering youth pastor. [He pops his collar.] It’s not that I would like to have Elliott’s sense of style, because personally I don’t like his style. I would just like to have access to these brands, to these designers. And I never gave anything beyond the first call we had before we shot the entire first season where I was just like, “I just feel like there’s something very Jennifer in there. Saunders in Absolutely fabulous about him. “In just the kind of wealth layering. And that’s actually too many layers. And Matthew – I think he was imagining it already, by the way – but he took it fully and ran with it and it’s so awesome.
I also just like – it’s so nice when you’ve already just had a visual joke. So that you can literally show up and have a hangover, tired or cranky and your costume literally does 75 percent of the job.
Which designers are you interested in?
Well, the big one that Elliott wears a lot is Issey Miyake. All the pleated stuff is like, so beautiful. I don’t think I would wear it, but it looks really gorgeous. Isabel Marant, Dries van Noten, like, they’re people I’ve never known before this job. It’s so much fun to wear such beautiful things.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone dresses you up for a red carpet?
You know, I always said, “No, I’m not going to have a stylist.” No one is knocking on my door. I want to be clear. But no one ever offered to be a stylist for me, or to pay a stylist for me. As if you thought, from what I don’t have in my closet, that I would be like ‘John, get a stylist’.
Comments are closed.