Highlights from the Timothée Chalamet Vogue interview
“Down the hall and unbeknownst to the group of grade school girls practicing their tendus in mismatched leotards, Timothée Chalamet has spent an hour walking in circles.”
“Chalamet has devised a concept—and to be clear this is his concept—that might best be described as an acid trip of a cadet march. Welcome to the press tour for Marty Supreme.”
“Marty Mauser is the most self-referential character Chalamet has ever played, which he understands is not entirely a compliment. 'It’s the most me I was until I had any sort of career,' he says.”
“The film business is splintering, and people who want to sell movie tickets should perhaps learn from those who have succeeded in holding the public’s attention. That means going everywhere."
“He had been auditioning for acting jobs since he was a child, landing a pivotal role on the series Homeland and a small part in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar—which is still, of all the movies he’s been in, his favorite.”
“When I ask if he thinks he’ll ever return to [television], Chalamet responds with a simple, self-assured 'no.' He doesn’t hedge with an out for ‘the right project’ or offer some caveat about a certain director. He just flashes a movie-star smile, and that is the end of our on-the-record conversation about that.”
“Of course he did wear the Berluti jacket.”
“'“The experience of getting famous the way I did and the rocket ship of it was destabilizing,' he says. 'I feel like I made it to the other side of not some tragic, fucked-up chemical thing, but just the challenges and a lot of the mental health stuff that comes with being a talented artist.'”
“'“I’m so fucking locked in now,' Chalamet says. 'I’m literally actively falling in love with this newfound creative structure, this discipline that I’ve only accrued through experience.'”
“He is self-funding the design and production of the gargantuan Ping-Pong heads and the Marty Supreme track jackets as well, although he expects studio A24 will come in for some of it.”
“So of course he was disappointed when he lost out at the Oscars a week later. ‘If there’s five people at an awards show, and four people go home losing,’ Chalamet says, ‘you don’t think those four people are at the restaurant like, ”Damn, we didn’t win"? I’ve been around some deeply generous, no-ego actors, and maybe some of them are going, “That was fun.” But I know for a fact a lot of them are going, “Fuck!”’”
At least Chalamet is honest about it. ‘People can call me a try-hard, and they can say whatever the fuck,’ he continues. ‘But I’m the one actually doing it here.’
“Chalamet used to romanticize the tortured artistic process. But now he is much more drawn to effort and readiness.”
“Chalamet will not talk about his relationship with girlfriend Kylie Jenner ('and I don’t say that with any fear, I just don’t have anything to say')”
“After Dune, Chalamet has ‘a clean slate.’ He and the director James Mangold will reunite at some point on a recently announced film titled High Side.”
"'I feel like theater in LA is kind of radical,' he says. 'I was at a show with, like, 61 people in the crowd, and it was pretty out-there. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, Wow, I can’t believe this is in West Hollywood.'”
“Dependent as his work is on distribution, Chalamet is obsessed with what gets seen and how. ‘I’m looking around, and I’m like, Who comes to this? And then I see Robert Pattinson in the front row, with his chin on his fist.’ After, the two went out for a beer. The vampire and the messiah, plotting the future of movies.”
“Years ago, he came across an interview with one of his idols, Daniel Day-Lewis. ‘He said, “You risk being foolish,”’ Chalamet remembers. ‘You risk being foolish, and that’s really the only risk.’ With those stakes and his talent? ‘It’s like, Why not go super hard?’”
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