"OKAY-CEDARWOOD," CHRIS PINE SAYS.
"Here we go. Rosemary."
Monday morning in the hills above Hollywood. We're in Pine's sauna, a cube of wood and glass near the edge of his property. Pinelightly bearded, shock of graying hair, wearing only orange board shorts-is perusing little bottles dripping essential oils into a waist-high chimney topped with hissing hot stones, fine-tuning the vibe.
"Oh, yeah. Enoki leaf," he says. "We'll do that." Pine flicks the thermometer: 120 degrees and rising. He picks up a bundle of leafy twigs-to move the air around, he explains, not the kind you whip yourself with, though he's got one of those, too. He moves the air around. Then he climbs onto the bench next to me and folds himself into an impressively deep yoga squat, ass down by his heels.
The air in my mouth feels like cotton candy. I reach for the insulated water bottle I've been provided "If you taste something in that," Pine says, "I put a bit of barley tea in there." He tried it at a Korean restaurant: now he's into barley tea. It's become part of the overall sauna process. Pine enjoys a process. Making an espresse, building a fire. "I love any sort of ritual," he says. "I can even get into a Catholic Mass because I like the aesthetic. And a sauna is a whole ritual. It's about gifting yourself a period where there's nothing to do other than to purify, to release, to cleanse, to start again."
This story is from the March 2023 edition of Esquire US.
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This story is from the March 2023 edition of Esquire US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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