This week I had a chance to talk to Michael Kelly, the actor you definitely know from House of Cards, Jack Ryan, Lioness and soon Landman. He typically (but not always) plays some version of a hardcore U.S. intelligence bureaucrat, but in real life he’s a completely different guy. He’s a lovely guy with great style, which is why I am happy to get a chance to chat with him about clothes. Michael lives in Bedford, NY, and has become friends with the Rivay folks through a shared interest in style, but also because they are all good people. They all went out to Montana to shoot the Rivay AW26 campaign and the result is a really great reflection of the quality and POV of the brand.
Below is a little bit more about the shoot and the collection from Rivay co-founder Jon Ruti. It’s interesting to see all of this come together, and especially interesting when you consider the Rivay team is roughly three people total. So they are doing a lot with a little. The clothes are great, and selfishly that’s most of what we all want, but the storytelling is fantastic too, and I’m always impressed with this brand. More from Jon below.
The idea for the shoot started with a character: a singer-songwriter and drifter at the tail end of his career who heads to Montana looking for inspiration and, maybe, one more crack at it. We talked to Michael Kelly about approaching the shoot almost like a film and letting that story unfold over the course of a few days. As he moves through the Montana landscape, the mountains, empty roads, fences, cattle and long stretches of open country slowly begin to work on him. Somewhere along the way, he begins to think that maybe he can write again.
Michael really embraced the character and the idea of telling a story rather than simply modeling a collection. Glen Allsop photographed the campaign, and we traveled through the Paradise Valley area, shooting in and around Livingston, Emigrant and Pray.
That narrative also felt right for the Fall/Winter collection itself. There’s a strong American workwear and Western undercurrent running through it, but it sits alongside Italian knitwear and tailoring, English woolens and more refined pieces.
Pretty strong if you ask me. My Q&A with Michael Kelly further down. Thanks for reading.
Q&A With Michael Kelly
ACL: These photos of you wearing the new Rivay collection feels so natural. What do you like about the brand?
Michael Kelly: Everything. I mean, it’s pretty simple, really. It is pretty much all I wear. From the first denim shirt I ever bought, I just had not ever felt that comfortable in a shirt. And I don’t know, it gave me confidence. It just feels really good.
ACL: How do you think about style in your everyday life? Do you read any menswear Substacks?
MK: I don’t. You know, when I think back to my early days in the city and I had no money and so everything was vintage for me. And I played in a band and we would wear mostly ‘70s shit. Like I had bell-bottom suede purple pants— but we made it all work. You know I still have my John Deere cap that I bought off a guy on the street. Everything was just whatever you could afford.
And then I guess it was when I started to work as an actor, you get turned on to new stuff. You start doing press for things and everybody wants you to wear something and you kind of have your favorites that you go through every now and then. But I never had anything stick like, like Rivay, to be honest.
ACL: Oh, you wear Rivay well and it suits you. How much of your closet does the brand make up?
MK: All of it. If I had to guess, I would say it’s probably about 75-80%. I know if I’m going out, I’m wearing Rivay. It’s what I feel the best and most confident in. But yeah, like if I’m out in the yard or, obviously, at the gym, you know, I got all that other shit. Maybe I’ll wear a little Rivay in the yard, but not all of it.
ACL: Love that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up doing these types of shoots for GQ. Have you had any phone calls for style shoots?
MK: No. I would be surprised! I mean, I’m not a model. I really see this more as storytelling. We did a collaboration, and we tell stories with these photos. I told Jon when we started, I’m not a model. I said, but if you tell me what you want to feel when we’re taking the shots, and he was like, oh yeah, I can do that. I got that.
And so we, we set out on this thing where he was kind of just directing the shoot and we were working to tell the story of this songwriter who goes and finds his way. It was great to have Jon because he could, like a director, just sit there and tell me what he wanted me to feel. And, and by giving him that, he gets the look that he wants for the clothes. So, you know, no, I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of modeling, but it was cool to get the chance.
ACL: You look good in a cowboy hat. Are you getting in the mood to be William Crockett in Landman?
MK: While I am definitely getting in the mood, I’m also preparing to play this character I’m over the moon about. No, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Crockett in a cowboy hat. He’ll be more in the Tom Ford zone and all those fancy brands. He wears a lot of really nice shit. He’s a man of power and influence and a lot of money.
ACL: Speaking of Landman people — funnily enough, Billy Bob was my neighbor in Los Angeles. Do you guys expect to be talking menswear on set?
MK: Okay, first of all, how cool that you had Billy Bob as your neighbor. Um, but yeah, no, I expect to be talking about whatever Billy Bob wants to talk about. Much like on Lioness or Jack Ryan even, you know, all these great actors I get to work with, I feel like I like listening a lot more.
I mean, I’ll engage in a conversation, but I’m gonna talk about what these guys wanna talk about. You don’t learn much by telling Morgan Freeman something, but if you listen to Morgan Freeman, you sure learn a lot. So I’m gonna talk about whatever Billy Bob wants to talk about.
