Can We Do Something About Frank Grillo's Hair?

The new Superman movie has a trailer, but I could only focus on one thing.

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Long-term readers of The #Content Report probably already know that giant mops of hair on child actors (and child actors generally) are one of my signature bugaboos (bugs a boo?). Lately I’ve added another one: Frank Grillo, an adult actor who nonetheless manages to activate the same public school aberration detectors as an overcoiffed child. (Have you ever seen a Nickelodeon sitcom? They give me The Fear. I can’t last five seconds.)

It’s nothing against Frank Grillo as an actor — he’s a great modern-day “that guy” — or him as a person. Frankly (ha), he seems like a charming man. No one else would’ve been so perfect in Paul T. Goldman, playing the action star in the show-within-the-show, but also appearing as himself, a super cool actor guy that Paul T. Goldman would obviously want to be friends with. It was a role that perfectly synthesized Grillo’s skill as a “that guy” and his general affability as a character. Some actors’ skill is precisely that they always feel a little hyperreal (see also: Stephen Dorff, perfectly cast in the latter two seasons of Righteous Gemstones). I guess what I’m saying is that there’s clearly a place for Frank Grillo.

But the hair, man. I’m sorry, I cannot take this guy seriously. I was reading Rebecca Watson’s critique of Adam Conover the other day and I felt seen:

The hair, the smirk, the suit, I’m sorry, I can’t help it, it awakens some ancient survival instinct in my lizard brain. […] You know what, maybe I should reconsider my innate bias against white men with abnormally tall hair. After all, I met Conan O’Brien once and found him absolutely delightful!

Yes! I was also watching some Instagram explainer the other day about why Russians don’t smile as much, and how it’s because they see people who smile a lot as inherently untrustworthy. The smile then being read as potentially the sign of a huckster, which may come from having a “lower trust” society. I think high hair may do a similar thing in my brain. Subconciously I feel like I’m about to get a pitch from some greasy televangelist or a late night informercial grifter and I reflexively recoil. What do you want from me, fucker! Stay away!

Anyway, Frank Grillo is in the trailer for the latest Superman movie for maybe one second and he looks like this:

It had me doing the DiCaprio gif. There he is! With the goddamned high hair again! I know it’s a comic book movie, but even so, Grillo immediately stands out as existing on a different plane of comic book reality than the rest of the movie. According to IMDB, he’s playing a character named “Rick Flag Sr.,” described in the DC wiki thusly:

General Richard Bill "Rick" Flag, Sr. is a decorated general in the United States Armed Forces, the father of the late Colonel Rick Flag, Jr., and the formerly appointed leader and field commander of the Creature Commandos.

Sure, fine, whatever.

I’m just saying, the hair, like the rent, is too damned high. Does Frank Grillo really have the clout to turn away the hairstylist on a $300 million movie who wants to trim off like 1.5 inches off his ridiculous pompadour? Crazy to think.

Anyway, here’s the trailer. Written and directed by James Gunn, it’s arguably his highest-profile project since taking over as the co-CEO (with Peter Safran) of DC Films. Relatively unknown David Corenswet plays the hero, and he certainly looks the part. Which is to say, as similar to Henry Cavill as copyright laws would allow. Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult are in there too.

Great cast overall. And while I have my reservations about Gunn (specifically vis-a-vis his ability self-edit at times), Superman certainly looks a lot more interesting than Marvel’s attempts to build franchises out of esoteric stories from deep in their back catalog. It seems like you can actually see what’s happening during the action sequences and appears, at least based on the first trailer, to be refreshingly light on banter. But it’s also just a trailer so who knows. Opens July 11th. Plenty of time to digitally erase some of Frank Grillo’s hair before then.