Esquire December 2012

GET TO KNOW THE ESQUIRE ELF ALEXIA FAST Age: 20 Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia Height: Five foot nine Which makes her how many inches taller than her costar in the upcoming film Jack Reacher (out December 21)? Two Name of that costar: Tom Cruise Age at which she wrote, directed, and starred in her first film (which premiered at the Atlantic Film Festival): Seven Age she later claimed to be when she wrote the film so that people "would believe her": Nine Mother's occupation: TV and movie producer Father's occupation: Songwriter So it's no surprise that she's: An actress and a singer Upcoming TV series she's starring on: ABC's Red Widow On which she plays a character she describes as: "A very shallow hippie chick … a troublemaker." Holiday advice:…

Bradley Cooper Scott Raab talks with the actor about his new film And college and his dad and motorcycles. and then David O. Russell stops by. Early evening, David O. Russell's office in Los Angeles. Cooper and Russell have been meeting about their next film. SCOTT RAAB: Yo! BRADLEY COOPER: Whatup! SR: With all the time and lo-cation changes for our inter-view, I thought I might wind up meeting Anderson Cooper at midnight in Bakersfield. And I mean that as a compliment. Thanks for meeting with me. BC: Are you kiddin'? SR: Good meeting with Russell? BC: Yeah. Hopefully David will come in and talk to us. SR: Are you ready to go? BC: Let's go. You want some water? SR: Thanks. You're very kind. It seems that you have…

A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE CAPITAL BY JOHN LANCHESTER The name of the central street in John Lanchester's Capital (W. W. Norton, $27) is Pepys Road, which is almost too much of a giveaway. Just as Samuel Pepys's diary offered the definitive guide to the material reality of 17th-century London by describing the quality of a maid's breasts or the value of a round of Parmesan cheese, so Capital describes the £100,000 basement renovations and the ludicrous variety of chocolates available for purchase today. The novel's plot develops around a series of menacing postcards left in all the houses on Pepys Road with the simple message "We Want What You Have." This premise is really not much more than an excuse for Lanchester to offer intensely observed, fascinating portraits of…

TWO DOG OWNERS are bragging to each other about how amazing their respective pets are. The first says, "My dog is so clever that he waits by the front door every morning for the paperboy to deliver the paper, then brings it to me in the kitchen to read while I eat breakfast." "I know," says the second. "My dog told me." ABOUT THE JOKESTER: Although Jaime Lee Kirchner plays a doctor on the Fox medical drama The Mob Doctor, she is not the mob doctor. Not that that diminishes her role on set. She's still involved in the important decisions: "We once spent time discussing all these standards of what color urine passes as acceptable," the German-born, Tennessee-raised 31-year-old says. "I'm like, 'This is what we're get-ting hung up…

Although it varies from cook to cook, gumbo is south Louisiana's signature dish—a complex stew pot thickened by a roux, a mixture of fat and flour that's carefully cooked into a paste with color ranging from blond to dark brown, depending on what's going into the pot. When I was growing up, we had chicken-and-sausage gumbo or seafood gumbo, but it was rare to find a combination of the two—probably because the smoked sausage there can be a bit overpowering. However, in this gumbo made with chicken, shrimp, and tasso—spicy smoked pork that's a staple of south Louisiana cooking—the three ingredients complement one another because the distinctive flavor of tasso provides good balance, keeping the shrimp and chicken on an even playing field. Maybe you've heard that only little old…

Q IS PENIS SIZE HEREDITARY, OR DID I JUST GET LUCKY? Though the size of related men does appear to be commensurate (and thanks to everyone who participated—your vouchers are in the mail!), there's been no definitive ruling on this. Unlike, say, a widow's peak, no single gene is responsible for making your penis a certain size. (I did know a Big Dick Gene some years ago, but I don't think he's involved.) One's ultimate size is really determined by a confluence of heredity and the slew of hormonal, environmental, and behavioral factors at play during puberty—often loudly and well into the night. Therefore, I can't say for sure that your future son will be as blessed as you've been, but from what I remember, your dad's a bit bigger.…