SBIFF 2018 - Santa Barbara Award - Timothee Chalamet Presentation & Saoirse Ronan Speech

Well, thank you for a wonderful evening, Saoirse. Thanks for coming. Thank you. And now it's time to introduce Timothee Chalamet. My name is Timothee Chalamet and I have the great privilege of getting to present the incredibly talented Saoirse Ronan with this award tonight. Saoirse is no stranger to Santa Barbara, having won the Virtuoso Award for her performance in Brooklyn. And as some of you know, Saoirse is friends with U2 and Ed Sheeran, so I'm sorry that they could only wrangle me for this intro. But for those who don't know me, which is probably like 80% of the room at least, I play Saoirse's love interest in Lady Bird. And this may come as a complete shock in the world of teenage romance, but it doesn't end so well. The first time our characters meet in the script, they shake hands, and our writer-director Greta Gerwig accompanied the action with the following description. There is something instantly sexual between them. Lady Bird has never felt this thing before. She gets all R&B songs ever written in one moment. And now I struggle with this description mightily because our relationship in real life could not be playing out more differently. Saoirse kindly walked over to me on one of my first days and she said, you know, I think some of the cast and crew are going to get drinks after work. Do you want to come? I replied that, you know, I was only 20 years old and thus could not legally consume alcohol. She said, what about a fake ID? And so I said to that, you know, I said, ah, what's the rush, right? And she replied incredulously, what's the rush? And then she walked away. And I thought to myself, I want you to think I'm cool. And Saoirse, listen, I wanted you to think I was cool because you are so fucking cool. And that goes beyond the three Oscar nominations you have now under your belt at 23. It goes beyond the fact that almost every critic has praised your sense of rhythm and the honesty in your performance about the confusion of our teenage years. But what I think, what makes Saoirse so true to real life on screen is that she just, she makes it look so natural and so effortless. Effortless, effortlessly, effortless. Didn't fact check that one. We did an interview together recently and the journalist said to Saoirse that her eyes express so much. And he asked her, how does she do it? And I don't think there's really an answer. Naturalism is difficult, counterintuitive to the performative instinct. But the pointed naturalism you're able to achieve in this performance, the strong direction you take in each scene, even when Lady Bird is truly clueless, is beyond me. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to act with you. So to my co-worker, to my friend Lady Bird, to someone I can say is hella tight. Saoirse, I present to you this Santa Barbara Award. I'm just going to take them with me. Timmy is my prize. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much to everyone for coming out. I'll keep this short and sweet because you've been listening to me go on for the last hour and a half. But to Timmy, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of the work that you've done in Airfilm and in Call Me By Your Name and everything that you're going to do. He's brilliant. And he's got a good head screwed on his shoulders. And I'm very, very proud to know him. So thank you for this. Thank you to Anne and to Roger and Santa Barbara, all of Santa Barbara, for having me back again for the third time. It means so much. And I love coming here. There's such a great sense of community here and everything that's gone on here recently. It's a real testament to the people and the heart and the spirit of this community that you've all pulled together in the way you have. Thank you for just being a wonderful group of people. That's all I have to say. I'm very, very lucky to get to do what I do. We all are. I truly love it still, you know, 15 years later and getting to look back at some of that work was very special for me. So thank you for sharing tonight with me. It means an awful lot.