“Where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go,” wrote Mr Ernest Hemingway, an author who famously had trouble staying put. More often than not, what it is to be a man has been linked with adventure and travel, the hunter-gatherer trope with broader horizons. However, we’d argue that the true test of a man, especially during a global pandemic when working from home is the norm, is being able to find peace in his own living space.

There are figures we admire because they never appear even the slightest bit ruffled, whatever the situation – they always seem at home. But what about at home? Sure, there’s an art to nailing an acceptance speech while wearing a bow tie just so or careering around Mulsanne Corner at Le Mans without breaking into a sweat, but the real challenge is being able to sit back and relax without flinging style out of the living room window.

Not everyone is at ease with the idea of being at ease. And while it’s fine to loosen your belt or untuck your shirt, undo a button or two, that doesn’t mean your standards have to slip. Here are five guys who don’t just look comfortable in their own skin, but in their own abode, too. Proof that you can put your feet up without putting a foot wrong.

There’s something ever so slightly Tiger King about the decor in Mr Steve McQueen’s home in the Hollywood Hills. But the house itself, which frequently served as the backdrop to some of the most iconic shots of the actor, is, like its owner, a prime example of mid-century style. Even the majestic view through the vast glass windows over the canyons below is not enough to tear him from an important phone call. And where the unbuttoned shirt and sock spools suggest Mr McQueen is at leisure, the intensity in his eyes reveals a man who comes alive when he switches off.

Decades before employees were expected to complete lengthy health and safety checks when working from home, here’s Mr Marlon Brando, one of the movie industry’s brightest rising stars in the mid 1950s, brazenly tapping away at a typewriter perched on his lap. In later years, The Wild One actor’s Hollywood home was converted into a yoga studio, perhaps to channel some of the focus, not to mention flexibility, Mr Brando is putting into practice here. Easy, free-flowing clothing no doubt allows him to keep his mind on his work, as does the encouraging paw on his shoulder. “I live in my cat’s house,” Mr Brando once told reporters.

The Laurence Of Arabia actor probably spent less time in his own dwelling than Colonel TE Laurence himself. “I did quite enjoy the days when one went for a beer at one’s local in Paris and woke up in Corsica,” was one of Mr Peter O’Toole’s most celebrated refrains. When he did find his way home, he knew how to put his feet up (a chaise longue always helps). Here he is recuperating in his Hampstead pad the morning after the night before (or possibly three nights before) in very considered lighting and wearing dark glasses. When visiting, guests were encouraged to follow the house rules: “Fornication, madness, murder, drunkenness, shouting, shrieking, leaping, polite conversation and the breaking of bones – such jollities constitute acceptable behaviour, but no acting allowed.”

When this photograph was taken in 1959, Mr Anthony Perkins had the world at his feet. A promising young actor with a Tony nomination to his name, he had also tasted chart success as a pop musician (named “Tony”). Within a year, the film that defined his career, Psycho, would be released, changing his life for ever. Sir Alfred Hitchcock was said to have been drawn to Mr Perkins because of his boyish energy and earnestness, reminiscent of a young Mr James Stewart, which he sought to subvert with the role of Norman Bates. Here, Mr Perkins seems entirely comfortable in his orderly Los Angeles abode, although, with his foot on the furniture, he could perhaps be accused of treating the place like a hotel.

“I’d like to just work and paint,” Mr David Hockney said recently of his relocation from Los Angeles to Normandy, reportedly so he could eat and smoke at the same time. “The French know how to live,” he said. “They know about pleasure.” This isn’t his first dalliance with France. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mr Hockney pinballed between the West Coast of the US and Paris, where he rented an atelier in the vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Près quarter. A visionary in so many respects, not least in the way he dressed, Mr Hockney turned his home into his office long before WFH became common practice, let alone common parlance. Bonus points for his creative use of furniture.

The celebrities featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown