The record appears on White’s 2024 album No Name, while Reilly is fresh off the release of his own album What’s Not to Love
John C. Reilly has read countless scripts throughout his career. But the one that landed him his latest role was slightly unusual. It’s not a script, but a song. When the actor first heard Jack White‘s “Archbishop Harold Holmes,” he wanted to step inside of it as the titular character. In the newly-released music video for the No Name single, Reilly does just that.
From the altar of a Los Angeles church, Reilly preaches to the congregation while neon blue lightning bolts shoot out of his hand. “God spoke to me. Said, ‘Listen to me I anoint you with the power that’ll get ’em all movin”/You’re agitated, you’re prayed and meditated/You’re concentrated on gettin’ elevated,” he lip-syncs to the sound of White’s voice. Reilly developed the video concept alongside director Gilbert Trejo.
Reilly’s video appearance follows the release of his own album What’s Not to Love as Mister Romantic. “I looked at our weary world a few years ago and tried to think of a way I could spread love and empathy,” Reilly said earlier this year. “I decided the most fun way to do that was through performing and singing and telling people I loved them. So the emotional vaudeville show Mister Romantic was born, out of both hope and despair.”
The album follows “the story of an eternal optimist, Mister Romantic, as he looks for love,” Reilly explained. “Each song moved me enough to want to share it with people and keep each one alive by passing it on like some of my favorite singers did in their time.”
A theatrical live show accompanied the recent album release. “The nostalgic, supper club vibe of the Carlyle — dressed-up guests supped lobster bisque and ate steak frites and foie pâté while downing cocktails with ingredients like ‘dry gypsophilia’ — was a perfect setting for the show, which drew from jazz, cabaret, pantomime and Reilly’s genial storytelling,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the set. “As Mister Romantic gets romantically shot down by audience members again and again, it’s hard not to rush the stage to give him a hug.”
