Vanity Fair on Tuesday dropped its star-studded Hollywood issue to celebrate Tinseltown’s best “who pushed storytelling forward with hope and humanity during a surreal year.”
The eye-popping 27th annual issue called “A Fantasia in Ten Acts” features Michael B. Jordan, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Sacha Baron Cohen, Maya Rudolph doing a spilt, Michaela Coel, Spike Lee, LaKeith Stanfield on top of a white horse, Awkwafina and Dan Levy.
The 2021 Hollywood portfolio “portrays a magical dreamscape representing not only that the show must go on, but that there’s joy in its continuance,” Vanity Fair said in a press release.
In the issue, which hits newsstands on March 2, the stars “speak candidly about how interpreting this year’s events has become central to their work, and how the transformation the entertainment industry has undergone could present an opportunity for more lasting, positive change.”
Inside, one photo shows Theron donning a Richard Quinn coat and boxing gloves while standing in a boxing ring alongside a roaring bear before a canyon backdrop.
In answering what has made her the angriest and what gives her hope from this past year, Theron responded, “It’s hard to try to quantify what, amongst the horrible events that we’ve had in this last year, are the worst.
“They are all pretty f–king sh-tty,” she continued. “Dealing with a virus and the amount of human loss that we’ve had—that’s pretty f–king sh-tty. The pain and the suffering that I have seen my friends of color go through during this period…I mean, I’m hoping it’s an awakening.”
“The Old Guard” actress also referred to the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot as “all pretty f–king sad.”
“The only thing that makes me feel like I can think of the glass as half full, instead of half empty, is that I’m hoping that out of a lot of this really deep, deep, deep pain and suffering, we will come to realize that we can’t keep going this way,” she said.
Artists Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari directed 10 photo shoots across four continents for the issue “using modern techniques that allowed VF to minimize on-set personnel and maximize COVID-19 protocol,” the magazine said.
