Enthusiasts of Hollywood taxonomy have long struggled with a knotty dilemma: Is Chris Messina technically one of the Hollywood Chrises?
Chris Messina goes blond in a blatant play to join the Hollywood Chrises
Allegedly it’s for Birds of Prey, but I think we all know the truth.
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
True, Messina’s name is Chris, and true, he works in Hollywood. But unlike the Chrises Pine, Evans, Hemsworth, and Pratt, Messina doesn’t do action movies. He has never pledged his allegiance to either Marvel or DC.
But what is perhaps a more crucial consideration is that Chris Messina is not blond. Messina has brown hair! If you see him out of the corner of one eye, you wouldn’t think, “Oh, which Chris is he again?” You know which Chris he is. He’s not part of the near-interchangeable set.
Until tonight! Because tonight, at the 2019 Golden Globe Awards, Chris Messina introduced his new blond look.
The look is not universally beloved. Some observers have noted that blond Messina looks eerily like a supervillain.
While others think Messina might just be pulling it off.
But everyone can agree on one thing: The new hair is a major change of pace for Mr. Messina.
Now, some would have you believe that Messina has gone blond for a role. Per Deadline, he’s prepping to appear in DC’s Birds of Prey, where he’ll be playing the villainous henchman Victor Zsasz. (Ewan McGregor will be playing Zsasz’s boss, Black Mask.) So some would say that Messina just needed to go blond to look villainous for the part.
But I think we all know better. (First of all, Victor Zsasz is traditionally bald.) Clearly what happened is that Chris Messina saw his opening.
“Okay, Chris,” he thought to himself. “You finally made it. You’re in a DC movie now. You’ve been working for this moment for years, and now you’re almost there. There’s just one thing left to do.”
Chris Messina has given it everything he’s got. He’s making a comic book movie and he’s gone blond for it. We’re about to find out if that will grant him admission into the rarified set of Hollywood Chrises.
In the meantime, have fun on Twitter memeing wildly about the hair.
