The 2018 Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio: 12 Extraordinary Stars, One Momentous Year
A super-stellar lineup, including Oprah Winfrey, Robert De Niro, Nicole Kidman, and Reese Witherspoon—plus, one special cameo—took advantage of their downtime during the shoot of a historic V.F. cover.
Cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
by James Wolcott
Styled by Jessica Diehl
In the quarter-century since Vanity Fair launched the Hollywood Issue, show business has changed in fundamental ways, as have magazines. But a star-studded, foldout cover remains a surefire thrill. This year’s portfolio goes inside the cover’s creation, which took place in L.A. and New York as Annie Leibovitz photographed 12 of film and TV’s most iconic actors—with a non-actor corralled for the shoot for his last V.F. hurrah.
The films and TV shows represented by the actors in this year’s Hollywood Portfolio—which for the first time offers a behind-the-scenes look at the shoot—took the #MeToo movement in stride, offering strong women in leading roles, as well as strong men supporting them. Here we have Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman summoning the women’s battle cry of Big Little Lies alongside Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, the indispensable sidekick to The Post heroine Katharine Graham. There’s also Claire Foy and Gal Gadot, embodiments of their formidable characters, the Queen and Wonder Woman, and one possible future female president in the mix. Movies have always thrived on relevance, and this year’s cover stars don’t hesitate to make a statement about the times we’re living in and the changes that need to happen.
GAL GADOT, actor, model.
13 films, including Wonder Woman (2017).
Physically, the Israeli actress, model, and former Israel Defense Forces combat trainer Gal Gadot brought all the right attributes—imposing height and beauty, athleticism, goddessy glamour—to the task of playing Princess Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, better known around the neighborhood as Wonder Woman. But it was a secret power Gadot unsheathed that won the day: charm. In a blockbuster season with so little fun to be had, Gadot’s exuberant high spirits (and Patty Jenkins’s direction) redeemed the DC franchise from its male-menopausal funk. The rest of the Justice League should turn in their trunks.
