The actor stars in the new Prime Video original movie ‘Masterplan’

NEED TO KNOW

• Stanley Tucci opened up to PEOPLE about his popularity with fans online
• He shared that he has “no idea” why he’s the internet’s favorite boyfriend
• “Maybe I wore them down,” the Devil Wears Prada 2 star said

Stanley Tucci is bewildered by his popularity with fans online.

While sitting down for an exclusive PEOPLE in 10 interview, the 65-year-old actor admitted he has “no idea” why he’s become the internet’s favorite boyfriend.

“I have no idea — I really don’t,” he said. “I’m glad they are.”

Tucci continued, “I don’t know, I’ve been around a long time. So maybe I just wore them down.”

Speaking with Yahoo’s Off the Cuff this month, the Citadel star said he can trace the spike in his online fandom to lockdown in 2020, when his wife, Felicity Blunt, shared a video on Instagram of him making her a cocktail.

“And then everything changed,” he said with a laugh.

“It’s all my wife’s doing,” he joked about his internet-boyfriend status. “I guess she’s trying to get rid of me.”

Recalling the more explicit comments the post garnered, Tucci said, “It was very funny for an older man. It was very flattering.”

A serious foodie, Tucci frequently shares viral cooking videos in which he whips up Italian favorites like puttanesca to pasta e ceci. Asked how he gets ideas for his tutorials, he told PEOPLE, “Sometimes it’s very spontaneous, and other times I will say to [Blunt], ‘Hey, we need to do a thing, I want to do a video about this kind of dish, or I want to show this thing.’ ”

“But Felicity is very good about knowing what to film and when to film it. I don’t think about it as much,” he added, joking, “You know, she’s better at it because she’s younger.”

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Tucci’s Devil Wears Prada 2 costar Meryl Streep shared her take on the actor’s mystique when she spoke in his honor at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony back in April.

“Stanley has an elegance to his heterosexuality, his undeniable heterosexuality, which is formidable,” she said of her longtime friend. “Not that heterosexuality is better than any other kind of sexuality, it’s just that elegance, real, unforced, natural, unstyled elegance.”

She added with a laugh, “It is sometimes harder for straight men.”

“I’m in love with you, just like everybody else,” Streep, 77, continued. “It’s impossible not to love Stanley Tucci.”

She went on to describe Tucci as “urbane, sly and funny.”

Tucci’s latest acting role, in the Prime Video original movie Masterplan, sees him delving into the art world. He plays Roger, “a master thief who enlists two strangers for a Louvre heist targeting the Mona Lisa, then reveals they’re his children and siblings who must cooperate to pull off history’s greatest art theft,” per a synopsis.

Tucci told PEOPLE he was drawn to the project because he loved the script, explaining it reminded him of ‘60s and ‘70s heist movies he watched when he was younger.

“I love the backdrop of it, and I like the complexity of the character,” he said. “I like the ridiculousness of it — because it is ridiculous. But it is also incredibly charming.”

Masterplan is streaming now on Prime Video.

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