Chosen One of the Day: Mustachioed baes of genre

Here's the thing about pretty menfolk of the Hollywood variety: If they don't conceal their upper lips, we will be hypnotized by their powerful philtrum and be rendered powerless to their scruffless charms. That is why, when attempting to act in film or television, these actors put away their razors — and with them, their mystical energies. 

What I'm saying is Jake Gyllenhaal and Rahul Kohli are heroes, lifesaving heroes, and we owe them thanks.

In The Haunting of Bly Manor, Kohli uses his dazzling follicular skills we know and love and just cancels the beard part (I assume that's how he got rid of it, just looked in the mirror and said "that's done, that's cancelled" and it just fell off). By the power of his lip tickler he ages and de-ages and is timeless like some kind of olden and fancy hairbrush stuck under his nose.

Of course, a little thing like a veritable vibrissae can't hide the handsome. We just get a little bit of his lower face, as a treat. In that way, Kohli evokes another dreamboat of a beautiful dingus, Jake Gyllenhaal, specifically in Okja. I mean. Look. Lookatit.

Credit: Getty

So, OK, remember Bird Box? When the people look at the thing and it's so beautiful they have no choice but to turn all shiny-eyed and destroy their corporeal forms? That's basically what it's like to look at Jake Gyllenhaal. To allow mere mortals to gaze upon his visage, he must look deeply into his own reflection at which point the mustache just appears because even he can't look at himself without consequence. Clearly John Mulaney shared in its transformative abilities hence his choice to cast Gyllenhaal as Mr. Music in The Sack Lunch Bunch. Only children are immune, only the children could withstand his countenance.

With great whiskers come great responsibilities. Handsome ones at that. Thank you to these men for helping us survive their beauty. For the sacrifices they make, we are ever in their debt.