GQ’s Men of the Year Dinner May Have Found the Next James Bond

At our annual behind-closed-doors pre-game for GQ’s Men of the Year 2026 party, the toasts (and at least one roast) led to some friendly off-the-cuff suggestions for casting everyone’s favorite spy.Cocktail hour was drawing to a close; the traditional pre-party dinner for the 31st edition of GQ’s legendary Men of the Year event, presented by Johnnie Walker Blue Label, was about to kick off. GQ’s Designer of the Year, Celine’s Michael Rider, and our Director of the Year, Denis Villeneuve, were already posted up inside the Chateau Marmont’s lobby lounge; the guests lingering just past the entrance included Odysseus himself, Matt Damon, building with his Ocean’s partner-in-crime Don Cheadle before pivoting to greet Chris Rock—like Damon, one of GQ’s three Men of the Year issue cover stars. (Andrew Garfield, subject of that third cover, had rolled in a few minutes earlier, resplendently coiffed, immediately gathering his After the Hunt co-star Ayo Edebiri and director Luca Guadagnino into a reunion hug.)But among the Men of the Year veterans in attendance—like Rock, who scored his first MOTY cover in 1999, circa Bigger and Blacker—there were also plenty of first-timers from the new class of news-makers and paradigm-shakers celebrated in GQ’s 2026 Breakouts portfolio. And that varied mix—of longtime icons and undeniable up-and-comers, from Owen Thiele and Inde Navarette to I Play Rocky’s Anthony Ippolito and electro-rock duo Fcukers—made for a veritable particle accelerator of improbable collisions.Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg in deep confab with Tinashe. Tony’s Stavros Halkias in an across-the-table comedy summit with Chris Rock. Journalist Pablo Torre, whose reporting on Kawhi Leonard and the LA Clippers salary-cap shenanigans shook the NBA, engrossed in conversation with GQ’s own Zach Baron and Villeneuve, who’d just signed off on the prints—for real this time—for his third and final Dune movie, soon to shake the walls of nearly every IMAX theater on Earth.And Villeneuve wasn’t the only auteur on hand: Between the Dune mastermind, Misty Green writer/director/star Rock, Club Kid’s similarly slashed Jordan Firstman, the La Bola Negra writer-directors jointly known as Los Javis (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrosi) and Guadagnino, who upon arriving had almost immediately located a cinematically moody lamplit corner to hold court in, the Chateau’s lobby was, quipped GQ Global Editorial Director Adam Baidawi, “an incredible room to be an out-of-work actor in.”Because journalism doesn’t take a night off—not even GQ’s biggest night—Baidawi also tried, during his opening remarks, to pry some info regarding the identity of the new James Bond (off the record, just between us) out of Villeneuve.As the director politely demurred—hey, we had to try—another guest piped up from across the table. “Wait,” said Matt Damon, as Baidawi passed the former superspy the mic. “I have a question. Just a thought experiment. What if James Bond were older? And American?” (In the unlikely event that Damon just booked a second iconic-superspy role, you heard it here first.)Toast time was upon us: Rosalind Eleazar, raising a glass to Chris Rock, recalled her Zoom audition with Rock for Misty Green, which was followed in short order by a missed call from an American number and the two-word text message that would change her life: “Chris Rock.” (That’s right—when Chris Rock calls you from an unknown number and gets your voice mail, he follows up with a text that just says “Chris Rock,” an absolute power-move that is, unfortunately, hard to replicate by the rest of us.)“Thinking I was being rather witty, I replied, ‘Rosalind Eleazar,’” Eleazar said. “I waited eagerly for his response and—not so much as a laughing emoji. And I quickly realized that I am communicating with one of the funniest people on the planet and I should probably just leave the funny to him.”Eleazar recalled Rock telling her on set, My movie—your character, giving her the freedom to discover Misty on her own. “And that’s a rare gift,” she said, “and one that I will always be grateful for.”“Thank you, Rosalind,” Rock said. “The check will be there in the morning.”Ayo Edebiri began by saluting “my dear friend, one of my favorite people in the world, one of the best actors ever, and a little bit of a role model to me if I’m being honest: Robert Pattinson.” She paused as the crowd fell out laughing. “Andrew! Andrew Garfield. I’m so sorry. This is a different speech for a different guy.”“You never know what you’re going to get when you work with somebody,” Edebiri noted, but said the resolutely “normal” Garfield had put her immediately at ease on After the Hunt, making it “safe to be unsafe” in difficult scenes. “And, on that movie especially, we had tough stuff to do,” she said. “We were not nice to each other. Some of the boys these days, on Method, you never know.”“If you ever see him in public,” Edebiri continued, “don't try any small talk with this man. Just don't do it. He's medically allergic to small talk. You get very deep, very fast. You will end up talking about esoteric poetry or the nature of masculinity in the modern world or just water, like the power and the mystery of water.” (This we can confirm.)“I just love you so, so dearly,” Garfield responded, “and I hope we can be in each other's lives forever.”And with that moment of open-hearted sincerity out of the way, it was time for Damon to hear from frenemy Jimmy Kimmel, who fired off weapons-grade roast jokes. “I fought for the First Amendment this year,” Kimmel said. “You fought a puppet cyclops.”Damon, in response, mostly took the high road, offering up praise (for Edebiri’s speech) before getting the last word. “In closing, I would just like to repeat that I did not invite Jimmy Kimmel to this place. I’ve never invited him anywhere, and I never will. He is a horrible human being. And I thank you all for being here.” ✦ExpandGQ’s Adam Baidawi, Matt Damon, Chris Rock, and Andrew GarfieldExpandMatt Damon and Don CheadleExpandChris RockExpandAndrew Garfield, GQ’s Adam Baidawi, and Monica BarbaroExpandMatt Damon, GQ’s Adam Baidawi, and Chris RockExpandJason Bateman and Matt DamonExpandAnthony Ippolito and Alex MarxsenExpandDenis VilleneuveExpandMatt Damon, GQ’s Adam Baidawi, and George CortinaExpandInde NavarretteSign up for Manual to receive useful advice on style, health, and more, six days a week.Alex Pappademas is a Senior Features Editor at GQ. He has been writing about music, film, television and other forms of pop culture for over 20 years. He is the author of Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant— The Movies and Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon (2022, Abrams Image) and the coauthor, ... Read More