Page 90 - Men’s Health - USA (December 2019)
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insists he hasn’t let go. “The cape is in the Cavill says. “I was like, ‘Whoa.’ This page: Thermal shirt Somehow he had become one
closet,” Cavill says. “It’s still mine.” I had my whole life ahead of me by Banana Republic; of the most unpopular kids.
jeans by 7 for All
as a kid back then. I believed Mankind; boots by He’d do things he considered
in myself. But I was terrified Joseph Abboud for Allen chivalrous—like admonish
Edmonds. Opposite:
nothing was going to happen.” his classmates for flicking up
T-shirt by Armani
A FEW hours earlier, Cavill’s We’ve now grabbed a Exchange; pants by a girl’s skirt—and find him-
daily workout was interrupted by a cameo window-side booth at a restau- Tommy Hilfiger; self branded a “lemon.” (The
watch by Omega.
from Tupac Shakur. The actor was in a pri- rant across the street from nickname, he explains, means
vate gym in L. A., where he’s been spending the comic shop, where Cavill is having a “a boy who tries too hard with the chicks.”)
a few days for business. Over the past two midday iced coff ee. In conversation, he is And he was picked on for his weight, earn-
decades, Cavill has grown accustomed to thoughtful but rarely wanders beyond his ing another taunt: “Fat Cavill.” “I was a
exercising in whichever city he happens to self-set parameters: He doesn’t discuss his chubby kid,” he says. “I could’ve very well
land in. Maybe London. Or Budapest. Or love life in any way, and even a seemingly gone down the route of just accepting my
Abu Dhabi. They’ve all served as home innocuous query—like asking if he has a lot in life and being like, ‘I guess I’m not
somewhat recently, though he notes that he favorite among the countless memes his going to do anything.’ ”
doesn’t really liveanywhere: “I’ve been a bit Superman mustache inspired—fi nds him Cavill eventually slimmed down,
of a nomad for 19 years,” he says. demurring. Yet as he describes this fl ash- thanks in part to playing sports like rugby.
On this particular morning, Cavill was back to his old dorm, he smiles—which is But it wasn’t until he began acting in
sweating it out when Tupac Shakur’s 1998 unexpected, given how deeply unhappy he school stage productions that he felt more
hit “Changes” came on. (You know the says he was during those years. comfortable in front of others. “It actually
tune, the one in which Tupac’s raging, Cavill had wanted to leave home ever helped me survive,” he says. “Even the kids
mournful lyrics about social injustice are since he was a kid on Jersey, a British who were nasty to me at times and took
paired with a surprisingly banging Bruce territory known for its stunning beach- pleasure in squashing me—when I fin-
Hornsby sample.) He hadn’t heard the song es. He can appreciate the island now. But ished a play, they’d say, ‘Wow, you’re really
in years, and as he listened to it, Cavill— back then, it felt way too small. “I was good.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, this is where I
a guy who’s regularly unmoored—was desperate to get away,” Cavill says. His draw my strength from.’ ”
briefl y frozen in his past. He fl ashed on an parents, who worked in fi nance, sent him Such an origin story, of course, is just
image from his days as an English board- and his four brothers off to get a private the sort of outcast-overcomes-the-odds
ing-school student in the late ’90s, sitting education, nearly causing the family to mythos that superstar actors sometimes
in a dorm with a trio of friends as the song go broke. In his teens, though, Cavill’s inflate (or even create) to seem more
played. “It was the craziest sense memory,” big concerns were slightly more myopic: relatably mortal. But in Cavill’s case, the
92 December 2019 / MEN’S HEALTH
