Photo: HBO
HBO’s David Milch–Michael Mann horse-racing drama Luck sneakily premiered last December after the Boardwalk Empire finale. This Sunday night Luck begins its nine-episode run with an encore of the premiere (read our review here), officially firing the starting gun on a season of weathered scowls, profanity-filled Milch-ian dialogue, and troughs full of testosterone. With Milch and Mann working off-screen and Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, and Dennis Farina on it, this show is full of enough machismo to kill a horse. That got us wondering how it stands up to some of the manliest TV and film casts of all-time. So we came up with a formula that considers the virile attributes of the actors, the story, and the characters to come up with a “manliness score.” Then we applied this formula to the raw-meat-eating casts of some of the macho-est movies and TV shows of all-time. Here are the results.
![Characters with facial hair: 2
Characters with facial scars: 0
Characters with visible tattoos: 0
Body count: [Redacted]
Total real-life wives: 8
Three letter names: 0
Behind-the-camera badasses: 2 (David Milch, Michael Mann)
Three-time winners of Kentucky Derby: 1
Emmy nominations: N/A
Number of macho actors: 5 (Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, Michael Gambon, Jason Gedrick)
(2+8+1+2)/5 = 2.6
As the show goes on and the body count goes up, so too will the manliness score. It wouldn’t hurt if someone got a few tattoos either. Here’s some inspiration.](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/e96/afa/7351aa33b08fba1564b6d7a86a25ed45b9-20120127-machoshows-1-luck.2x.rhorizontal.w700.jpg)
Characters with facial hair: 2
Characters with facial scars: 0
Characters with visible tattoos: 0
Body count: [Redacted]
Total real-life wives: 8
Three letter names: 0
Behind-the-camera badasses: 2 (David Milch, Michael Mann)
Three-time winners of Kentucky Derby: 1
Emmy nominations: N/A
Number of macho actors: 5 (Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, Michael Gambon, Jason Gedrick)
(2+8+1+2)/5 = 2.6
As the show goes on and the body count goes up, so too will the manliness score. It wouldn’t hurt if someone got a few tattoos either. Here’s some inspiration.
Characters with facial hair: 4
Characters with facial scars: 1
Characters with visible tattoos: 2
Body count: 18
Total real-life wives: 10
Three-letter names: 3
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (Michael Mann)
Shoot-out scenes used to train Marines: 1
Oscar nominations: 0
Number of manly men: 8 (Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Henry Rollins)
(4+1+2+18+10+3+1+1)/7 = 5.7
The greatest heist movie ever has an overwhelming number of BAMFs, but their distinct lack of facial scars and tattoos brings down their manliness score. So too does a modest body count of 18. At 170 minutes, that comes out to one kill per 9.4 minutes. That’s not very manly at all.
Characters with facial hair: 4
Characters with facial scars: 0
Characters with visible tattoos: 3
Body count: 30
Total real-life wives: 12
Three-letter names: 1
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (Simon West)
Cons killed for not putting the bunny back in the box: 1
Oscar nominations: 2
Number of manly men: 7 (Nic Cage, Colm Meany, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, M.C. Gainey)
((4+3+30+12+1+1+1) - 2)/7 = 7.14
Despite a lead who’s a bit too sensitive to be considered a manly man (you know it’s true, Cusack), Con Air amps up its grunt-worthiness with a ferocious supporting cast of Rhames, Trejo, and Gainey. Too bad horrible accents aren’t macho or this one would have done even better.
Characters with facial hair: 1
Characters with facial scars: 0
Characters with visible tattoos: 0
Body count: 55
Total real-life wives: 14
Three-letter names: 2
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (John Sturges)
Knife thrower outdueling gun shooter: 1
Oscar nominations: 1
Number of manly men: 6 (Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn)
((1+55+ 4+2+1+1) -1)/6 = 10.5
No tattoos, no scars, and one lonely goatee on the bad guy, yet this classic brigade of square-jaws brings it on the macho front almost exclusively by killing dudes and marrying ladies. Those were the days.
Characters with facial hair: 6
Characters with facial scars: 2
Characters with visible tattoos: 5
Body count: 50-ish
Total real-life wives: 6
Three-letter names: 2
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (Kurt Sutter)
Women who are scarier than all the men: 1
Emmy nominations: 1
Number of manly men: 6 (Mark Boone Junior, Charlie Hunnam, Ron Perlman, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Ryan Hurst)
((6+2+5+50+6+2+1+1)-1)/6 = 12
Honestly, more than 50 people have probably died on this show, but after reading through the exhaustive list of characters on Wikipedia, that’s our best guess. Bizarrely, this group is essentially the polar opposite of the previous— hairy, inked up, and surprisingly stable in the relationship department.
Photo: PRASHANT GUPTA
Characters with facial hair: 1
Characters with facial scars: 1
Characters with visible tattoos: 0
Body count: 62
Total real-life wives: 18
Three-letter names: 0
Behind-the-camera badasses: 2 (Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius)
Ritual sacrifices of water buffalo with machetes: 1
Oscar nominations: 8
Number of manly men: 6 (Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, Dennis Hopper)
((1+1+62+18+2+1) - 8)/6 = 12.83
A victim of its own success, Apocalypse Now would easily be second on this list were it not for those pesky Oscar nominations (which, if you haven’t figured out by now, are distinctly un-manly). Big ups to Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, though, whose combined nine wives helped make up for a serious lack of points scored in the facial hair department by this baby-faced crowd.
Characters with facial hair: 3
Characters with facial scars: 0
Characters with visible tattoos: 0
Body count: 64
Total real-life wives: 10
Three-letter names: 0
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (John McTiernan)
Severed arms firing machine gun as it lies on the jungle floor: 1
Oscar nominations: 1
Number of macho men: 6 (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham, Kevin Peter Hall)
((3+64+10+1+1) - 1)/ 6 = 13
Along with being the second most macho cast on this list, the boys from Predator are also the most politically ambitious, containing two governors and one failed gubernatorial candidate (Sonny Landham). Perhaps the biggest surprise here, though, is that Predator was actually nominated for an Oscar. It would have won, too, if not for Martin Short’s intestines.
Characters with facial hair: 4
Characters with facial scars: 1
Characters with visible tattoos: 4
Body count: 199
Total real-life wives: 19
Three-letter names: 1
Behind-the-camera badasses: 1 (Sylvester Stallone)
Bodies chopped in half by a gun shot: 1
Oscar nominations: 0
Number of manly men: 11 (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Courture, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis)
(4+1+4+199+19+1+1+1)/11 = 20.9
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Expendables was cast specifically to top lists like this. And consider this: The astonishing body count of 199 was racked up without Arnold or Willis getting their hands dirty. Unfortunately, it’s a safe bet that this movie won’t occupy this space for long. The Expendables 2 adds Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris to the cast.
