Few people have made as many headlines due to facial hair as Henry Cavill. The man once famously had a mustache that was so powerful it impacted the production of two blockbuster movies, and now the Cavill-stace is back. The actor has the best mustache of any 2024 movie release in Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and it turns out that getting the facial hair just right took a lot of work on Cavill’s part.
Speaking with CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell, Henry Cavill explained that the idea to have the incredible and perfectly waxed mustache was one the actor himself had, but it required a significant amount of work early on, both for Cavill to learn just how to wax it, and to actually train the hair to stay in place. He shared…
I had this idea of a big beard (and) mustache. Obviously, it takes time to grow, so it had a sense of evolution like that. But I always wanted to have that twirly, worrly, wax mustache look. And that takes training. Not just by me, to work out how much wax to apply and how I want it to look. But the actual hair itself needs to be trained so it stays in position. Otherwise, if I just turned up to set without having trained the mustache, then it would never keep that position. It would, as soon as you got hot, all the wax would melt and you’d just end up with a droopy one, so to speak. . And so it was always part of the plan, and it turned out rather well.
I had no idea so much was involved in growing a mustache like this, but then I’ve never tried. Cavill had to do the work early to make sure the mustache was ready for cameras. Nobody wants to be on film with a droopy mustache or have to spend half their time between shots reapplying wax. I for one am glad he did it. That mustache is part of the reason I'm looking forward to this movie.
Henry Cavill is no stranger to getting people talking due to mustaches. The actor made headlines several years ago when the infamous reshoots for Justice League were happening alongside Cavill’s role in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. This required that his Superman character be altered via CGI to eliminate the facial hair that his M:I character had, that he was unable to shave due to the schedule. The result was… less than successful.
That facial hair was solid, but the mustache in Ministry of Ungentlemenly Warfare is epic. He goes for the fully curled and waxed mustache, a look that most people wouldn’t even try to pull off, but Cavill looks quite at home in the new Guy Ritchie movie, where he plays a man tasked with leading a covert mission during World War II. Henry Cavill and his mustache will be in theaters this weekend
