When we first started Hollywood Authentic, we were advised that most new magazines don’t make it past their third issue. I’m so proud to prove that statistic wrong by presenting you with issue 10, the most extraordinary issue we’ve ever created in terms of access and content.
Take my shoot with Dakota Johnson in London – a story nine years in the making and a key part of the creation of Hollywood Authentic. I first met Dakota on the red carpet at Venice in 2015 as she walked it with Johnny Depp for Black Mass. Afterward we travelled by boat to The Cipriani and I showed her the sort of photos I took – without a plan, we took a walk and shot some beautiful moments. In the same year, I bumped into Dakota at the Chateau Marmont and we made a plan to shoot the following morning. A plan with no plan. She collected me in her old pick-up and drove over to Laurel Canyon where she lived at the time. We stopped for coffee at the Canyon Store and then hung out in her backyard by the pool playing Radiohead records and chatting. The photos from that simple authentic slice of life were a stepping stone towards the shooting style I have since finessed, and right at the inception of the Hollywood Authentic ethos that I’m proud to say feels unique to other publications. Shooting Dakota in July in London felt like a full-circle moment.
Another great story in this issue is our shot-over-a-two-year-period account of David Corenswet’s rise to global fame, which began on the day he first set foot on set in his Superman costume and concluded with a flashback tour of his acting school, Juilliard.
It was amazing to experience a front-row seat to the metamorphosis of an actor becoming a star in real time – rather like when I documented Daniel Craig becoming Bond.
Equally exclusive is our coverage of Emma Watson as she gauges her new priorities with our mutual friend Hassan Akkad over a game of pickleball on the French Riviera. Emma does little to no press, so to get access to her thoughts at this time felt like a gift. It was also extraordinary to get the in-garage access to Toto Wolff and the Mercedes-AMG F1 team at two Grand Prix in Bahrain and Monaco. There’s also inside-baseball insight from Arianne Phillips and Sandy Powell, my old friends and Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and Ariana Greenblatt talks ‘A Little Nonsense’. And we get a unique look around the Griffith Observatory care of photographer Mark Read. And did we mention the biggest movie actor in the world, Tom Cruise? As I say, our greatest issue yet…
GREG WILLIAMS
Founder, Hollywood Authentic
