The Story of JOHN CURIOUS C. Reilly AND HIS Talented SON LEO

John C. Reilly became one of Hollywood's best-loved actors by keeping a pretty tight lid on his private life. His model-musician son Leo is becoming one of the internet's most adored characters by pursuing a decidedly different approach.

- SAM SCHUBE 

JOHN C. REILLY has long believed that his career as an actor has benefited from a rigorous resistance to celebrity. Showbiz gossip, tabloid misadventures, stray tweets: These things might help make you more famous, but Reilly believes they detract from the work. "People monetize their privacy these days," he told me recently. "You have to realize the value of your privacy and protect it."

This approach has earned Reilly a reputation for being cagey about his personal life. It has also, undeniably, served him well. Now in his fourth decade as Hollywood's most reliably delightful supporting actor, the 57-year-old is finding a new level of success on television, embracing his sex appeal (and comb-over) in the role of longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss on this year's HBO series Winning Time.

Reilly's son Leo, 23, has an altogether different, which is to say conspicuously more contemporary, idea about the value of privacy. Like his dad, Leo is an artist: He went to college for fashion design, and he recorded music on the side, under the name Love Leo. As the music earned a sizable following-and a major-label record deal-he dropped out to focus on it. He wasn't ever quite sure what he'd eventually do for a living, but he knew that reaching his goals would require engaging with his audience in a way his father never had. "I was building a pretty substantial following on social media, and so I knew that whatever I wanted to do, I had at least a little bit of a platform to jump-start and give it a really good chance of succeeding" was how he put it. "I don't think my parents really understood that quite as much."