John C. Reilly’s Lovelorn Alter Ego

“I’d always wanted to do a show where I came out of a box,” the actor John C. Reilly said the other day. For fifteen years, he kept a steamer trunk in storage, just in case. “Then I thought, I’m never going to do that show. I should get rid of that trunk—it takes up all this space. I got rid of the trunk, and a week later I was, like, No, I am going to do it! I have to find another trunk! So I measured myself and looked on eBay, and within two days I had another trunk, and I spray-painted this stencil on it that says ‘Mister Romantic.’ ”

Mister Romantic is Reilly’s alter ego, a crooner in coattails who serenades audiences (“What’ll I Do,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”) on a quest for everlasting love. For the past two years, Reilly has been sporadically performing the character in a roaming, semi-improvised solo act, in under-the-radar engagements in Los Angeles and elsewhere; he did his first show two days after wrapping the HBO series “Winning Time.” “I realized, if actors can’t make money on residuals anymore, what’s my long-term plan?” he said, grinning. “When the going gets tough, the tough go to vaudeville!”

Reilly was in a room at the Chelsea Hotel, sipping boba tea. He was in town to promote a Disney stop-motion short, “An Almost Christmas Story,” inspired by an owl that was found in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in 2020; Reilly plays a balladeer. Meanwhile, he’d arranged for Mister Romantic to make an appearance at the hotel, partly in the hope of drumming up an Off Broadway run. “I was nervous about coming here after the election last week,” he said. “But then I remembered why I started doing Mister Romantic in the first place—our world was becoming kind of coarse, the way we’re treating each other. You see these reality shows, where people are always despicable. If we’re going to get out of the jam we’re in, the world needs more empathy.”

As he fretted, a crease formed between the top of his nose and his Cro-Magnon brow. Mister Romantic grew out of “Mister Cellophane,” his number from the movie “Chicago.” He described the new show: “Essentially, this band comes into the theatre, and a steamer trunk is delivered onto the stage. Impossibly, I come out of the trunk and say, ‘Hello, my name’s Mister Romantic. I don’t know what happened before. All I know is that I have to stay in that box. When I come out of the box, I have to put on a show. And I don’t have to go back into the box if I can find one person who will love me—forever.’ Then I do these very romantic songs about love and unrequited love and love that never was, and I talk to people. I fail every night, and I have to go back into the box. But what I say at the end of the show is ‘Well, even though I couldn’t get a single one of you to love me forever, what I’ve realized is I love all of you. And that’s something!’ And I get back in the box and get shoved offstage.”

Reilly wore a three-piece Glen-plaid suit, which was not his costume but just what he’d put on that day. (“At some point in my life, I decided, You’re an eccentric person, so you should dress however you want.”) Mister Romantic wears a tuxedo and a black bowler, like “someone who’s been in mothballs for a hundred years,” he said. Back home, Reilly has some fifty hats. He also collects amateur clown paintings. He learned clowning at his church youth group, in Chicago. At drama school, he planned to apply to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, in Florida, which promised a circus contract, but an acting teacher warned that he’d be shovelling elephant dung. He stayed in Chicago and wound up in a Steppenwolf production of “The Grapes of Wrath,” kicking off a prolific career as a character actor with a specialty in guileless dopes. Like Mister Romantic, he still struggles with feeling lovable. “I don’t look like your average bear,” he said.

Hours later, a few dozen invited guests crammed into the hotel’s velvety piano room. Mister Romantic emerged to the sounds of a cornet-bell combo, holding a microphone shaped like a rose. He wore a tie looped like a bow tie, his hair fluffed to Larry-from-the-Stooges proportions. “I’m so happy to be out of that box!” he said. He stumbled over the spectators and flirted with a woman named Margaret, to whom he sang “La Vie en Rose.” “May I show you my heart?” he asked, pulling a drawing of a heart from his jacket. “Margaret, do you think you could love me—forever?”

“I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she replied.

“I appreciate your honesty,” he said, glum but undaunted. A few rejections later, Mister Romantic looked out and asked, “How’s your week been?” Groans. “At least you’re not living in a box.” ♦