The Flirting Secret Behind Three Classic Movie Scenes: Why Great Chemistry Starts With Calm
Matthew Hussey
Dating and relationship coach Matthew Hussey analyzes three flirting scenes from films: Vanilla Sky, Yes Man, and Blow. For each one, Hussey explains what makes the flirting effective on the surface. The larger aim is to show a single quality underneath all three, which the speaker argues most flirting advice ignores. On the surface the scenes look very different: one is sassy and sincere, one is comedic, and one is nearly silent. Hussey's claim is that all three come from the same place.
Vanilla Sky: Confidence Paired With Sincerity
The first clip is from Vanilla Sky, a film Hussey says they personally love. Penélope Cruz plays Sofia, who meets Tom Cruise's character, David Aames, a wealthy New Yorker, at one of his parties. They end up back at her place at the end of the night, and the scene shows the chemistry building between them.
Hussey's first observation is that Sofia is not intimidated by David. She is not seduced by what he owns or who he is. She is cheeky and sassy, and she is willing to tease him. When he asks her nickname for him, she answers "Citizen Dildo," and she tells him plainly that he is not staying over.
According to Hussey, this playfulness works because Sofia also shows sincerity and earnestness at other moments. When she talks about moving to New York, she says everyone told her not to go, but she believes "good things will happen if you're a good person with a good attitude." She asks whether he thinks she's naive, and he says he really doesn't.
Hussey calls this a "unique pairing": two attractive qualities that you don't normally find in the same person. The video includes a clip of Hussey expanding on the idea in conversation. If someone can go deep on a date and have a great conversation, then say something sexy five minutes later, that person becomes "addictive," because having both is what is actually attractive. Hussey says it is not hard to find someone who is feminine all the time or masculine all the time. Women, Hussey says, don't want a man who is masculine every second of the day, because constant "alpha, alpha, alpha" becomes boring. That, the speaker suggests, is why it is attractive when "the alpha guy cries."
Applied to flirting, some people can be cheeky, confident, and a little sarcastic but don't know how to be sincere. Others are sincere but can't be playful, so they get stuck in a deep, serious mode. Someone who can do both is, in Hussey's words, "a rare bird," and rare birds are difficult to replace.
How Sofia Handles Big Compliments
The detail Hussey most wants to highlight in this scene is how Sofia reacts when David pays her large compliments. She mentions that she also works mornings as a dental assistant, and he replies, "Why am I going to the wrong dentist?" She doesn't jump in with a response. She simply pauses.
A second version of this comes when David describes himself as someone who used to be "snowboarding through his life with no focus whatsoever." She asks when he changed, and he answers, "About five minutes ago." Hussey calls this a huge compliment. Someone less self-assured might swoon over it or react to it intensely. Sofia doesn't. In Hussey's reading, she lets the validation pass by so she can stay present with what David is actually saying. She responds to the substance: "Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." Hussey says something deeper is going on beneath the surface here, and holds off on naming it until all three clips have been shown.
Yes Man: Flirting by Not Breaking Tension
The second clip is from Yes Man. Hussey says they remember watching this film at about 21 and thinking it was a great moment of flirting that they would talk about one day.
In the film, Jim Carrey plays a man who has started saying yes to everything in his life. He meets a quirky, fun-loving woman played by Zooey Deschanel. They have a meet-cute at a gas station that ends in a kiss at the end of the night, but they don't exchange numbers. Later they run into each other at one of her gigs, and she greets him as "out-of-gas make-out guy."
Hussey points to a first moment that "doesn't actually look like flirting." He offers her a drink, she says she has to leave because she has to wake up early, and he responds with a slightly disappointed "Oh, really?" Hussey flags this as important for what follows. She then says he can walk her to her scooter.
Along the way they banter about hobbies, and he casually mentions that he has done "some charity work and some nude modeling, FYI." When they reach the scooter, the asking-out happens backwards. She says, "My answer is yes. I'd be happy to go out with you." He says he didn't ask her out. She replies that he could have fooled her with the nude modeling comment. He says she was the one who said it, and she answers that whoever said it, "it made me very uncomfortable."
Hussey loves the clip because it shows two different ways of flirting. Jim Carrey is very funny in a way we might all aspire to in our best moments. Zooey Deschanel is "doing a lot by doing a lot less." For people who are quieter, more reserved, or not quick to a punchline, Hussey says her performance shows you can still flirt simply by not breaking tension at key moments. She pauses and then invites him to her class the next day. He jokes, "Why don't you stop smothering me? Seriously, it's way too much too soon," before saying he'd love to.
Hussey also addresses viewers who think they can't manage Jim Carrey-level humor. Hussey agrees and says they can't either. But the speaker argues that many of us get surprisingly closer to that kind of wit when we have the one quality the video is building toward, and says that quality is present in this clip as well.
Blow: Matching the Pace of Attraction, Not the Room
The third clip is from Blow, featuring Penélope Cruz again, this time with Johnny Depp. Hussey acknowledges these are "two impossibly beautiful people." The exchange is minimal: "Hello." "Hello." "I know you." "I don't think so." "Why are you smiling?" "Why are you smiling?" "I don't know."
Hussey first asks viewers to notice how busy the scene around them is: fast-paced and kinetic. Yet the two characters do very little. In the speaker's words, they are "not matching the energy of the room. They are matching the pace of attraction." Flirting has a certain speed, Hussey argues, and it is much slower than most people are comfortable with.
When Depp's character approaches, he doesn't launch into a polished "Hi, how are you, I'm..." introduction. Hussey contrasts this with a "Hugh Grant-esque" character and says it couldn't be more the opposite. He just says hello. We might imagine that exchange as ourselves on a really bad day, a terrible conversation. Hussey argues it is actually excellent for chemistry and tension, because he hasn't arrived with witty lines and a plan. Both are "ultra present" with what is happening in each other. Because they look comfortable in their own skin and take their time, a conversation that would look inane on paper sounds extraordinarily seductive out loud.
The Common Thread: A State of Calm
Hussey then names what unifies the three scenes. All of them feature people operating from a specific state of calm.
In Vanilla Sky, Hussey says Sofia's calm meant she wasn't nervous or overly grateful for praise. She wasn't in a state where her nervous system was feeding on any validation it could get that he liked her. She could respond from a place of self-assurance. Hussey cites another line: when David says "I like your life," she replies, "Well, it's mine and you can't have it."
In Yes Man, Hussey sees a calm in both characters that lets him be playful and lets her avoid being reactive. In Blow, the two characters were calm enough not to give in to the pace of the room or the pace of their nerves. Instead, they set the pace.
Hussey describes chemistry and tension as the byproducts of good flirting and says both have a speed. Going too fast, the speaker argues, is an attraction killer, and most people don't realize they're doing it.
What Hundreds of First Dates Showed
To support this, Hussey draws on their own experience. The speaker says that for about the last 20 years they have been a go-to dating expert for major TV shows. In that role they sat in a control room surrounded by monitors, watching people on first dates in order to comment on them for the show. Hussey says this made them a fly on the wall for hundreds of first dates. Of the dates that never led to a second one, Hussey reports that one thing overwhelmingly stood out: the people were going too fast.
Calm as the Source of Your Own Style
Hussey's conclusion is that this is what most flirting advice misses: flirting starts from a deeper, more foundational level of calm. There are many ways to flirt, including being funny, self-assured, sassy, playfully sarcastic, slow, or seductive. In the speaker's view, all of them come from a calm state.
Hussey argues that learning to access that state lets people find their own flirting style, one that makes them come across powerfully and increases the attraction they get from others. The key point is that this style isn't borrowed. It isn't a line picked up somewhere that doesn't sound or feel right to the person saying it. According to Hussey, it comes from the person's own calm state, and that is what allows their individual way of flirting to show. The video closes with an invitation to a free live program Hussey is running on accessing calm.
In this video, I'm going to take three clips that demonstrate great flirting. I'm going to show why it's great flirting, but I'm also going to show the truth at the core of each of these videos, which nobody talks about.
The first video is from the movie Vanilla Sky, a movie that I personally love. Penélope Cruz plays Sofia, a woman who meets a guy, Tom Cruise's character, David Aames, at one of his fancy parties as a wealthy man in New York. They end up back at her place at the end of the night and we see the chemistry unfold between the two of them.
"So many secrets." "That's because I'm really an arms dealer." "I've never known an arms dealer before." "You do now."
There is a lot that goes right about this interaction. Firstly, Sofia demonstrates that she is not intimidated by David. She is not seduced by the things that he has or the person he is. In fact, she demonstrates moments of cheekiness and sass where she shows that she is not afraid to tease him.
"What's your nickname?" "Citizen Dildo." "Mhm. You are not staying over."
But the thing that really works about this confident playfulness is that it's paired with a sincerity and an earnestness that comes out in other moments. Like when Sofia talks about her move to New York.
"Everyone said, 'Don't go to New York.' But I just think good things will happen if you're a good person with a good attitude. Don't you think? You think I'm naive?" "No. I really don't."
This demonstrates what I have always called a unique pairing. When you find two different attractive qualities in the same person that you don't normally find in the same person.
"Two things that are both attractive that you don't normally find in the same person." "In the same person."
"If you can go deep with me on a date and have a great conversation and then 5 minutes later you can say something sexy—" "Yeah." "—I'm like, 'Oh, you're going to be addictive.' Because both is what actually is very attractive. It's not hard to find someone who's feminine all the time. It's not hard to find someone who's masculine all the time. By the way, women don't want a man who's masculine every second of the day because it becomes boring. It's just alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha. Why is it so attractive when the alpha guy cries?"
"I know that you go, 'Unique pairing.'" So, there are people who can be cheeky and confident and a little sarcastic who do not know how to be sincere. There are other people who are sincere but do not know how to be playful and get stuck in that very deep sincere mode. When someone can do both, it makes them a rare bird. And rare birds are difficult to replace.
"But what does he have to do to really impress her? Very impressive."
But the thing I want to draw the most attention to is how Sofia reacts when David pays her big compliments. There's one moment where Sofia describes what she does to David.
"Truthfully, I'm also working mornings as a dental assistant." "Why am I going to the wrong dentist?"
Her reaction is not to jump in and say something, but simply to pause. We see a different version of this where David talks about how he's been going through his life so far.
"Yeah, I used to be one of those guys that just snowboarding through his life with no focus whatsoever." "When did you change?" "About 5 minutes ago."
That is a huge compliment. And to someone who's less self-assured, they may swoon over that compliment. They may be incredibly reactive to that compliment. She doesn't do this. Instead of swooning, she allows the validation to pass her by in order to stay present with what he is actually saying. And instead says,
"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around."
Now, there is something Sofia is clearly demonstrating beneath the surface in this clip. But before we get on to it, let's move on to clip number two. This one is from the movie Yes Man. And I am so proud because I remember seeing this movie about 21 years old and thinking to myself back then, that was a great moment of flirting. One day I'm going to talk about that. And here we are.
"The word is yes. Yes. Yes!"
So, in the film Yes Man, Jim Carrey plays a guy who has started saying yes to everything in his life. He meets this amazing, quirky, fun-loving woman, Zooey Deschanel. They have a meet-cute moment at a gas station, which leads to a kiss at the end of the night, but they don't exchange numbers. They do, however, run into each other at one of her gigs on a different night.
"Hey, out-of-gas make-out guy." "Did we make out? Oh, right. We did. Now I remember." And here is the first interesting moment of flirting, which doesn't actually look like flirting. He actually shows a little disappointment in the fact that she can't stay.
"Do you want a drink?" "Oh, I can't. I have to wake up early. So I have to go. But—" "Oh, really?"
Put a pin in that. We are going to come back to it because it is important to what happens next.
"But you can walk me to my scooter."
They have some fun banter along the way, including talking about their hobbies where he makes an off-hand playful comment about the fact that he has done some nude modeling.
"Yeah, that's cool. I've done some charity work and some nude modeling, FYI."
A few seconds later, when they arrive at her scooter, he asks her out, but he does it in a completely backwards way.
"My answer is yes. I'd be happy to go out with you." "I didn't ask you out." "Could have fooled me with that nude modeling comment." "You said that." "Well, whoever said it, it made me very uncomfortable."
The reason I love this clip is because on one hand you have Jim Carrey being very funny in ways that we might all aspire to in our best moments, but you also have Zooey Deschanel who's doing a lot by doing a lot less. So, for those of us who are more quiet, a little bit more reserved, who aren't as quick to the punchline, it shows an example of how you can still flirt simply by not breaking tension in key moments. She takes a pause and says,
"Hey, why don't you come to my class tomorrow?" "Why don't you stop smothering me? Seriously, it's way too much too soon. Yeah, I'd love to." "Okay."
By the way, for anyone who does think, "I'm not that funny. I can't pull off Jim Carrey level humor," I agree. I can't either. But we would be surprised how many of us actually get closer to that kind of humor and wit when we have the one thing that I made this entire video about that I promise you is coming, but it is present in this clip. It was present in the Penélope Cruz clip, and it is going to be present in the third and final clip that I'm about to show you.
"What'd I tell you, Derek? It's great."
This next clip is from the movie Blow. And yes, it's between two impossibly beautiful people. Penélope Cruz once again and Johnny Depp.
"Hello." "Hello." "I know you." "I don't think so." "Oh." "Why are you smiling?" "Why are you smiling?" "I don't know."
The first thing I want us to notice is how much is going on in this scene and how fast-paced it all is, how kinetic it all is. There's so much going on and yet these two do very little. They are not matching the energy of the room. They are matching the pace of attraction.
"I'm George."
Flirting has a certain speed and it is much slower than most of us are comfortable with. When Johnny Depp comes over, he doesn't say, "Hi, how are you? I'm Johnny Depp." In other words, he doesn't behave like a sort of Hugh Grant-esque character. It couldn't be more the opposite. He just comes over and says,
"Hello." "Hello."
Now, we might think that that would be us on a really bad day, like that. That would be a terrible conversation, but it's actually an amazing conversation for chemistry and tension because he hasn't come over with a bunch of witty lines and a plan. They're simply ultra present with what is happening in each other.
"Why are you smiling?" "Why are you smiling?" "I don't know."
And because they look comfortable in their own skin in that moment and they're taking their time, what would otherwise sound on paper like a terribly inane conversation out loud sounds like an extraordinarily seductive conversation.
"Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you."
Now, did you guess from this clip what it was that unifies all of these different moments of flirting? Even though on the surface they look quite different, all of them at their core are people operating from a specific state of calm. In the Vanilla Sky clip, Penélope Cruz was calm, which allowed her not to be nervous and overly grateful for the praise she was getting because her nervous system was feeding on any validation it could get that he liked her. Instead, she was able to respond to what he said from a powerful place of self-assurance.
"I like your life." "Well, it's mine and you can't have it."
If you look at the Jim Carrey example, there's a calm that both of them have that allows him to play and her not to be reactive.
"What are you doing here?" "What the hell? Is this crazy or what?" "So crazy. Are you stalking me?" "No, I would never do that. By the way, your new living room furniture looks great from the yard."
And in that last clip, we saw two people who were calm enough that they didn't give in to the pace of the room or the pace of their nerves. They led with the pace.
There is a speed to chemistry and tension, which are the byproducts of good flirting. Going too fast is an attraction killer, and most people don't even realize they are doing it. As a dating and relationship expert, I have been the go-to for major TV shows for the last 20 years, who has been put in a control room with monitors around me watching people on first dates so that I can comment on them for the purposes of the show. That has meant I have gotten to be a fly on the wall for literally hundreds of first dates. And of all the dates that never turned into a second date, there was one thing they overwhelmingly had in common. They were going too fast.
This is the thing that so much flirting advice misses. That flirting all originates at a deeper, more foundational level of calm. There are many ways to flirt. Being funny, being self-assured, being a bit sassy, having a playful, sarcastic moment, being slow, being seductive, but all of those things come from a calm state. And when we learn how to access a calm state, we'll be able to access our own unique style of flirting that makes us come across powerfully, that magnifies the level of attraction we get from people. And it won't be borrowed from anyone else. It won't be something you're saying because you heard it somewhere, but it doesn't sound right or feel right to you. It will be something that comes from you, from your calm state. That's what will allow your special style of flirting to appear.
I want to show you how to access calm on demand because when you do that, your life will change. On the 29th of September, I am going to be running at no charge a 3-day experience called The CALM Method, where I'm going to be sharing with you the techniques I developed for myself to be able to access a state of calm whenever I become dysregulated, whenever I feel like my emotions get hijacked. I have struggled with this in my own life, which is why I am so fluent on it today. And I'm going to be sharing techniques that I use every day in my life. I've shared them with thousands of people who are also benefiting from them and I want to share them with you now.
This is happening from the 29th to the 1st of October. That means in 2 days' time. It's free. You can go and get registered at 3DayCalm.com. This is going to be live with me. So, this is only happening once. Go register now while there's still time. And I will see you on Tuesday for day one of The CALM Method.
Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. And I'll see you in two days' time for The CALM Method.
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