[upbeat music]

So guitars have, have been very important in my life.

I got my first guitar when I was 12.

My parents used to ground me

by taking away my guitar, cause I,

I would just sit in my room

and play for eight hours a day until my fingers bled.

This guitar is very special to me.

For a couple of reasons.

It was a gift from somebody who is one

of my favorite people in this world.

And this is the guitar that Elvis played in

in his 1968 comeback special.

So it's a very special guitar to me.

This is one of my favorite books.

I always try to have a book on me.

This one in particular is, is amazing.

This is Raymond Carver's short stories.

What we talk about when we talk

about love this one's particularly beautiful because it's

it digs into all those gray areas of life and love.

He he's able to put things into words that, that I,

we all feel, but it's,

it's really hard to articulate it sometimes.

I talked to Tom Hanks

about how to keep your sanity, you know, and

and how to have longevity

in your mental health and in your career and everything.

And he said, he said, you know

one thing I do is every day I read, even if it's 10 minutes

I just read a little bit of something that has nothing to do

with the job that I'm doing.

That sort of gave me this permission

from one of my heroes to

to just have a little bit of joy reading every day.

My next essential is dark chocolate.

This is a brand called ritual.

I found this in New York for the first time.

And I like, I like upwards of 72% dark chocolate.

I, I'm not a big milk chocolate fan.

I respect people who do like it, but I'm just not a fan.

And now I'll do, I'll do some dark chocolate

with some oat milk and like really cold oat milk.

And it's, that's a really good combo.

All right.

So my next essential is a camera.

This is a Leica M6

I also have an M4.

That was my first film camera that I bought.

I, I was, I was working in New Zealand

and I knew I needed something to keep me sane.

Some hobby that I could obsess

about on my days that I wasn't working.

The other fun thing

about this it's it feels like Christmas morning

every time you get film developed and it's a slower process.

So it, it makes you appreciate it more.

And I'm a lot more decisive about what I'm gonna shoot and

and which is different than when you just take

out your phone and take a bunch of pictures.

I ended up, I ended up buying this house.

It had a dark room downstairs.

So I had this basement with a dark room.

And, and so I started learning how to do that.

And I'd just spend hours in there

in the red light, you know, developing pictures.

And I found so much joy doing that.

What I used to do was brew yerba mate tea.

And then I found this and, and that was kind of

this nice cold afternoon delight.

Lately, I just,

I've been cracking up open one of these and

and keeps me going in the afternoon.

I guess my thing is I like the mood

in a room to feel a certain way.

I found this perfumer in London

and the story that they had told me is

that she makes individual scents

for Johnny Depp whenever he plays different roles.

And so he'll have a specific scent for the role.

I don't know if it's true.

I haven't corroborated that, but I like that story.

I had a time where I was doing The Iceman Cometh

in New York.

I had this oil that I put on before every

every time I walked out

on stage and something about just whether

whether you're smelling something or hearing something or

or feeling something

there's ways that you

you just can trigger a mental state.

It's almost like Pavlov's dogs, you know, where you

where you kind of, you can trigger something in yourself.

So my next essential is,

is a good pair of vintage boots.

These, I found at a vintage store in New York and

and I just tried 'em on.

And I've got some others that are, you know

that this part comes up further

but these are just so comfortable.

And then I ended

up watching Fight Club one day and seeing Tyler Durden, I

I believe he's got the same boots in

in one of the scenes and he wears them unlaced.

And I thought it made me like 'em even more

I never know until I try on a boot, but you know, some just

they feel right when you put 'em on.

All right.

So what we have here, our next essential,

a Carhartt jacket.

I've got these in a number of different colors.

It's nice to have it keeps you warm.

And I, I just, yeah, it's

it's such an essential piece for me.

I, I found my first jacket,

I was in my mid twenties and I was in New York

and found a vintage one at some, at some spot in Brooklyn

and they just feel good on, you know, they keep you warm.

I like the canvas, you know, feel to it.

And then as they get worn in

they just feel better and better.

They, they it's like boots, you know, they just

they start to feel like a piece of you.

I, I went through a period

of wearing a Carhartt jacket every day and, and yeah

even in the summertime, I mean

people would think it's ridiculous, but I just, it

it starts to feel like a security blanket, you know

All right.

My next essential is a good journal.

This is a moleskin.

I have so many of these.

I've got bookshelves full of,

full of these from over the years.

And I, I, I use it trying to work

out my own thought processes.

Whenever I, I get a new notebook.

I, I end up feeling a lot of pressure.

When I, when I christen the first page

Usually my handwriting is really beautiful on the first page

and I'll start with a poem or something like that.

And then, and then progressively

it becomes just a stream of consciousness.

Actually reading Matthew McConaughey's book, he talked

about not just writing when, when you're sad

not just writing when you're feeling depressed

or anxious, but, but also making note of the

the times when things are going really well.

And it's that way you can look back and say, how

what was I doing at that point

in my life that made me feel empowered or

or grateful or whatever those things are.

So I've been trying to employ that a little bit more.

So my next essential is not just water because we can't live

without it, but a, a good container to hold it in.

I find that if I'm active, I am drinking a lot more water.

When I go through lazy periods, then I'm not, yeah.

I I've been trying to be more active lately.

So I've been, I've been really trying to be better about it

but you know, some days I'm, I,

I get to the whole day

I realize I've had three coffees

and no water and that's not good.

[upbeat music]

All right, so that's it.

These are my essentials.

Thank you, GQ.

Thank you for everybody who watched.

And I hope you have a good day.