Yesterday, a whole bunch of stills were released for the upcoming Christina Aguilera/Cher strip-musical Burlesque, and while they're interesting in a "perhaps this isn't quite the best time to launch Christina Aguilera as a major movie star" kind of way, there was only one thing I really wanted to know: does Stanley Tucci wear glasses in it? As you can see, he does, and admit it... didn't your interest just go up a notch? Here are three reasons why a glasses-wearing Stanley Tucci is the best kind of Stanley Tucci:
The maybe-gayness of it all
I think we're all assuming that Tucci's character in Burlesque will be gay, right? I mean, he's sitting next to Cher in a musical fronted by Christina Aguilera about catfighting strippers, so there's a certain expectation here. Still, the locus for that intriguing maybe-gayness is definitely in those spectacles. Put some glasses on Tucci and he immediately becomes more interesting by dint of his now-ambiguous sexuality -- just think of him in The Devil Wears Prada (he's even reprising his disapproving gay stare over the lenses for Burlesque!) or even Julie & Julia (I can't have been the only one that got a gay vibe off that character, and wouldn't it have been deliciously ironic?).
They supercede his uncategorizable sex appeal
In his 30s, Stanley Tucci was sexy -- but in a weird, undefinable way. Yes, he managed to make early baldness alluring in a way that's reminiscent of Ed Harris, but Harris has classically handsome good looks whereas Tucci looked like the girls' basketball coach who was busted for having an improper relationship with his star forward, yet his mugshot made you feel funny things whenever it popped up on the Channel 4 News. Casting directors had no idea what to do with him then, but when Tucci put on glasses and tapped into a certain geek chic, the roles suddenly came flooding in.
They signal, "I am comfortable being a character actor"
Some actors can never get over the loss of their leading man days, but a bespectacled Tucci is practically announcing to the world, "Do you have a nervous FBI analyst in your next movie? I will rock the s**t out of that part!" Tucci's next role is as "Dr. Abraham Erskine" in Captain America, and while the comic book character didn't have glasses, do you think there is any way on earth that Tucci is going to play a period super-scientist without rocking the best tortoiseshell frames ever invented? It's no coincidence that he was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar after The Lovely Bones... now that he's wearing glasses, he might as well take up residence there.