He's a scruffy, straight, single, middle-aged comedian-turned-filmmaker with salt-and-pepper hair. Previously, he was only known for what CNN called his "cultish brand of meta-comedy," his "gangly presence" and his "odd," "entirely awkward and strange" personality.
But now, thanks to You Can See Everything, his blockbuster documentary about Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and her fiancé Billy Evans (who also has a thirst-inducing nude shower scene in the film), Nathan Fielder is the megastar man of the moment in Hollywood, and a most unlikely sex symbol across all kinds of attractions.
The reason why depends on who you ask.
One fan who is a drag artist in Philadelphia described a moment Fielder is on screen that she said she can’t get out of her head: He's swimming in the ocean with Holmes, wearing nothing but briefs. “It was very intimate, and he looked really beautiful,” Montgomery, who performs as Diva Baby, told CNN. “I need him so bad. I don’t know what else to say.”
A lesbian fan whose social media is literally dedicated to actor Adam Scott proclaimed on X that, despite her affection for the Severance star, Fielder is the sexiest man alive.
A bisexual man in Pennsylvania named Breca noted Fielder is not a man traditionally considered attractive, but he was nonetheless drawn to the filmmaker’s salt-and-pepper hair and stubble. “He’s always looked middle-aged, even when he was younger, so he’s kind of grown into that, which I think made him seem more attractive,” Breca told CNN, which branded Fielder "a certified stud."
Codirector Lance Oppenheim said what makes Fielder attractive is his "separate form of masculinity."
"I feel like he's at his most masculine in You Can See Everything," he told GQ. Oppenheim is also straight and described himself as not feeling like a masculine man. "I'd always tell him, 'You look so handsome in this.' And I was just like, 'I love being this close on your face. I'm so tight on your face right now and you look amazing.' And he'd be like, 'Dude, you could see my blackheads and my zits and stuff.' I'd be like, 'You look great. I actually think it makes you look better.' He's a very unconventionally hyper-masculine man."
“I was blown away by the film, but also now feel deeply affectionate towards Nathan Fielder,” said Dallas, a writer in New York City. “I walked out of the theater being like, ‘I have competition because I want to have sex with Nathan Fielder and everyone here wants to have sex with Nathan Fielder.’”
The consensus centers on the sexiest thing Fielder did in the film, something much simpler than his looks: He appears to be actively listening to his subjects in the film. “We’re so emotionally touch-starved collectively that someone who can ask a question and pay attention to the answer is like manna from heaven,” read one fan in a post on X. “Every woman is sexually attracted to Nathan Fielder right now because he made a movie in which he listens to people talking.”
A clip from the movie, shared by Fielder himself on his Instagram, shows him doing exactly that.
And a comedian in Portland who describes herself on TikTok as a "real housewife" agreed:
"I have figured out why we can find this face so hot. Why is Nathan Fielder so much hotter here? It's an active listening face. That's it. It is just a man listening to a woman so convincingly that she thinks he believes her," said Molly S. Callahan. "Okay, husbands, men, boyfriends, guys, take notes. If you wanna be sexy, open your eyes and raise your eyebrows and look at a woman, turn your head a little bit and just give her a little squint. That's so hot. That says he's hearing me. Is he believing me? No. But what can we expect in this world, right?"
On X, Elise offered this analysis: "What makes Nathan Fielder so powerful is his gentle, direct, and unflinching line of questioning that cuts to the heart of what ppl are saying before they realize what they're saying."
That's been his trademark in all of Fielder's TV shows and in his movies. CNN writer Zoe Sottile said he "combines deep inquiry with awkward comedy, often with himself as a main character. This is his magic trick: Using artifice and absurd scenarios to capture uncanny glimpses of truth, with himself as a prop."
The Canadian burst into media in 2013 as host of Comedy Central’s docuseries, Nathan For You, a parody of business consultants and their tactics. Fielder is in front of the camera as well as behind it, playing a version of himself who is a naive but ambitious business school graduate with no interpersonal social skills and desperately seeking to make a connection.
From there, Fielder went to HBO with The Rehearsal. That reality series premiered in 2022 and expanded his obsessive anxiety in a new way: Instead of small business owners, Fielder focused on people with a problem to solve who also had issues communicating. In the show, he'd construct elabroate sets like an airport terminal in order to walk through and prepare for various outcomes of social situations.
The following year, Fielder starred in his first scripted series, The Curse, cocreated with Benny Safdie, and costarring two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone. They played a newly married couple trying to conceive while appearing in a house-flipping show on HGTV.
Fielder's work eventually landed him on the cover of New York Magazine, without much to hide.
New York Magazine Production by Megan Sluiter; Set Design by Laura Sian Morris; Styling by Megan Parsons for The Rex Agency; Grooming by Gabrielle Alvarez. Photo: Zachary ScottGQ
Angelina Chapin wrote in The Cut that Fielder's shirtless pose, "with slumped shoulders and vacant eyes, [was] a play on the self-serious photoshoots of Hollywood’s walking six-packs."
Chapin is the writer who may have captured Fielder best, writing in her 2022 article, Nathan Fielder's Strange Sex Appeal, "I’m not alone in seeing this nebbish man as a smoke show."
She cited Reddit threads in which his lips were described as “soft and pillowy” and posters confess, “I want to hear him talk dirty in character.” There was even a Twitter account, @WomenforFielder, which until 2020 had 25,000 followers and posted confessionals from women who admitted to their obsession: “Just got out of court (I’m a federal judge) and couldn’t get Nathan out of my head the entire trial.”
"There’s no way to tell when he is being authentic or in character, which means I project whatever I want onto that empty stare," wrote Chapin, which she noted has been dubbed "The Look."
"Fielder can be a control freak or a wild card, a square or a total psycho, a self-doubter or the cocky star of a hit HBO show," she said. "For me, there’s safety in his wardrobe of preppy sweaters and plaid shirts that renders him both knowable and attainable. Fielder probably brews a really nice cup of tea. But knowing he’d just as gladly don an elf suit and smear his face with chocolate is the real turn-on."
