Cover Story

Summer's MVPs

Caps off to Terrence Howard, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, and seven others who proved outstanding in their field this season
| Aug 16, 2005
Movie-star MVPs: See who made our summer | 151053__vaughn_l
Vince Vaughn: Robert Maxwell/Art Dept/CPI

Vince Vaughn

Age 35

Position Divorce mediator Jeremy Grey in Wedding Crashers; hitman Eddie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Season highlights Now he really is money. Vaughn was hilarious chasing ''babies'' and waxing eloquent in 1996's low-grossing Swingers. But after a run of serious-role duds — including his onanistic interpretation of mama's-boy psycho killer Norman Bates in that Psycho remake — he couldn't land comedies. Old School in 2003 and Dodgeball in 2004 finally made him not just a lovable motormouth but a bankable one, and this summer he topped himself, coming on like some nattering Barry Levinson character after a double espresso. Whether bellowing pissed-off patter at an unseen mom as Brad Pitt's assassin-agency pal in Mr. & Mrs. Smith or gleefully demonstrating how to ''motorboat'' a woman's breasts to Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers, Vaughn's unstoppable air of hedonistic brio makes him the buddy you want to hang with after the movie's over.