In the highly anticipated The Devil Wears Prada 2, B.J. Novak is making a bold entrance into the iconic franchise, though not for his high-fashion sensibilities. Playing Jay Ravitz, the son of the powerful Runway owner Irv Ravitz, Novak has hilariously claimed the title of the “worst-dressed character in the history of The Devil Wears Prada universe”. Far from the high-glamour world of Miranda Priestly, Novak’s character serves as a stark, comic foil to the magazine’s impeccably curated aesthetic.
Novak describes Jay as the quintessential “tech bro”—a nepo baby who enters Runway with plans to modernize the publication through the efficiencies of Silicon Valley culture. To reflect this, his wardrobe is intentionally jarring, filled with synthetic materials and the ubiquitous “tech bro vest”. As Novak humorously noted, Stanley Tucci’s character even quips that if a match were struck near Jay, he would “go up in flames,” a testament to the flammable nature of his cheap, synthetic attire.
The contrast between Jay Ravitz and the rest of the cast is central to the film’s narrative tension. While Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly represents an unwavering dedication to aesthetic perfection and artistic legacy, Novak’s Jay believes solely in metrics, speed, and the future of tech. His presence creates friction as he attempts to “shake up” Runway, much to the frustration of returning characters like Andy Sachs, now an established journalist returning to clean up the magazine’s reputation following a major scandal.
For Novak, playing such a fashion-challenged role was an “honor of a lifetime,” offering a fun opportunity to lean into a character who represents everything the original film stood against. He embraces the role with self-deprecating humor, noting that in a movie where fashion is a language, his character’s clothes are a loud, clashing dialect of their own. As The Devil Wears Prada 2 prepares to hit screens, audiences can look forward to seeing Novak’s tech-obsessed outsider clash with the high-fashion world, dressed in attire that is—by design—an absolute disaster.