In 2023, Oscar-nominated actor, beloved comedian, and doting musician John C. Reilly launched Mister Romantic, an improvised musical revue starring a desperate, pansexual, love-seeking time traveler living in a steamer trunk. As he’s taken the production to Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, and beyond, it’s become his finest act yet. I spent time with Reilly last year and wrote about Mister Romantic, as he readied a debut album and set out to expand the performance in more territories. It’s a terrific getup, and you should go see Reilly perform if he ever comes to your town.
Mister Romantic isn’t some money-grab or mid-life crisis adventure. Reilly cares about the idea and wants to keep doing it for a long time. From my vantage, he gets a real kick out of singing those timeless pop standards to multi-generational audiences. He told me last year: “I don’t need to get any more famous or make any more money. I just want my life to have meaning. And I think that’s true of everybody, whether you’re a janitor or a rocket scientist or a journalist or a musician—you just want to feel like, at the end of the day, my life had meaning. What I did affected people and, possibly, made the world better than it was before I was here.”
As Valentine’s Day nears, Reilly saw it apt to share a few new tunes via his Eternal Magic Recordings vehicle: “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” He’s got a sold-out performance at the Glendale Presbyterian Church—his biggest venue yet—coming up on the holiday, which has become an annual, love-filled tradition. Like What’s Not to Love? a year ago, the tracks offer Reilly’s hallmarks: warm singing, affectionate charisma, and lots of talent, performed with Davíd Garza, Charles De Castro, Sebastian Steinberg, and Gabe Witcher. Listen to both singles below, read my cover story on Reilly here, and keep up with Mister Romantic on Reilly’s website.
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