Celia Walden

Falling out of lust with Red Carpet Peacock Ryan Reynolds

would like the men of Hollywood to retain some mystery

I don’t want to sit through the Oscars knowing what control-wear Brad’s sporting beneath his custom Gucci tux or how long Viggo spent in hair and make-up

Should any man out there be curious to know what the death of female sexual desire feels like (and I don’t mean the slow erosion that comes with time and familiarity; but an instant, steak-knife-tothe-heart-style libido extinction), I am about to explain. First – and perhaps inevitably – there’s disbelief: he couldn’t have done, said or worn such a thing. Then your stomach plummets like a lift shaft in free fall, the disappointment Pepto-Bismol thick in your throat. You might close your eyes or shake your head in an effort to rid yourself of whatever image or fact has ruined that man for you for ever, but it’s too late. And so you move on.

I never thought I’d move on from Ryan Reynolds. The man has always done something unsettling to my abdominal region, he was brilliant in Deadpool, and I used to find it hard to watch him on screen without three little words running on a ticker tape through my brain: ‘come to mama’. Yet, just like that, it’s dead. What was the steak knife? The $860 pre-red carpet skincare regime (the mere word ‘regime’ plunges that blade right back in) to which the actor subjects his perfect Canadian features during award season. This, insists his ‘groomer’ (when she’s not feeding Ryan Milk-Bones), is a ‘minimal’ approach compared to what other male A-listers now do. Every additional detail given (the lip conditioner left to do its thing on Ryan’s chops; the excess toner blotted from his impeccably choreographed facial hair with tissue – cotton wool being so tricky with the stubble) is drowned out in my head by a crescendo of stabbing sounds.

But I’ve got to get with it. You see, this award season is all about the Red Carpet Peacocks: a new breed of male colourful and extravagant enough to eclipse Charlize, Nicole, Emma and Angie – even when she does the leg thing. ‘It’s the only way [for men] to be noticed,’ explains top Hollywood stylist Jeanne Yang. ‘And if you aren’t going to be noticed, what’s the point?’

I honestly don’t know how to answer that. And I have no problem with these gorgeous and talented Hollywood specimens getting mansome on the red carpet: fanning and shaking those fabulous Dior and Tom Ford plumages – eyes Zoolander-locked on the wall of paparazzi – in a way that’ll get them a place on the ‘best dressed’ lists and a gazillion Instagram likes. Just don’t tell me how they came to look so good. Because I don’t want to sit through the Oscars knowing what control-wear Brad’s sporting beneath his custom Gucci tux; how long Viggo spent in hair and make-up (OMG, Touche Eclat will, like, eradicate razor burn!); and why regular lymphatic-drainage facial massages might just give you Ryan’s stomach-flipping stare. That just prompts stomach flipping of a different kind. The kind you’d get if someone slowly read out the ingredients on a packet of pork scratchings. Because, as with all the most delicious things in life, it’s probably best not to know too much.