Elle Fanning & Timothée Chalamet Q+A | Marty Supreme | A24

Hello, everybody. I am so, so thrilled to be here tonight to have a conversation with the one and only Timothee Chalamet. You know, I've been seeing a lot of these Q&As that he's been doing. And he's gotten a lot of cool and interesting people that he's worked with from his past to come and talk with him. So I was very happy that I got the call that he deemed me cool enough to have one of these talks with him tonight. Timmy and I, we've worked together a couple times now. We've known each other for a long time, like growing up in this industry. And I know that I'm not alone when I say that I feel that he is truly a once-in-a-lifetime talent that we don't get to see often. And I think, you know, this year he definitely proved that with his career-defining performance as Marty Mauser. But it was very interesting in preparation for this tonight, I went back and I watched Beautiful Boy. And I realized, gosh, like, he's been turning in career-defining performances straight from the jump. And you know, he's so inspiring to me. I'm so proud that I get to call him a dear friend. And like, I'm also a fan, too. I'm like the rest of you. I'm waiting on bated breath to see his next performance. And so without further ado, it's very dark out there. He's probably behind the curtain. But I'd like to introduce my friend and the one and only Timothee Chalamet. Yes. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hey, man, I appreciate you tried to get it going. People didn't really follow your lead, but I saw that, man. I'm forever indebted to you. Thanks, Elle. You're welcome. And just a big, big thank you to Elle for doing this and for helping me re-examine this movie, because this is, like, one of the movies I'm most proud of. And, you know, I'm sure it was a heavy watch just now. Hopefully, it will work. And thanks, everyone, for being here. I've never been to this theater. What did you say when you come here growing up? Yeah, I did. I haven't been here in a while, but I really love it here, especially the theater next door. It's, like, smaller and intimate. Than this. Yeah, a little smaller. It's cute. No shade to this theater. No, no, this is a great one. This is the main event here. Gosh, well, I guess we jump right in, right, to talk about Beautiful Boy. It's such a specific and such an honest portrayal of addiction, I think. And I was curious. I guess we'll start from the beginning of, because I wasn't sure when you actually filmed this. Was it after or before Call Me By Your Name? Like, did you have to audition for this? Yeah, this was, yeah. This was four or five months after Call Me By Your Name, because I think I auditioned for this in December or January of that year, whatever the following summer of Call Me By Your Name was. And I was just, I'm sure you've read those roles, too. You're hot after, and you're like, man, I'm dying to do this. And that was exactly it. I was, you know, there was a, I forget what the scene was, but in the audition, I had to explode in one of the scenes between Nick and David. And the casting director kind of told me to dial it down. And I was never going to be that big. And that's the scene the director told me he responded to in the audition, was that take. And, but yeah, it was, long story short, it was whatever that was, 2016 or 2017. And do you get nervous for auditions and stuff? Yeah, absolutely. And especially the ones where you are dying to have it, you know. This was definitely one of them. I had Beautiful Boy, which the film was named after, but also Tweak, which was Nick Sheff's book, which chronicles the same period. And I was watching this again today, too. And I'm just so proud of it. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but just the entire cast and the director, Felix Van Goeningen, and it, I think it's a movie that's only grown, hopefully, in the years it's been out. Yeah, I think so. And the cast, it's like, thank you, Ryan, and Maura Tierney, Steve Carell. I mean, when Maura Tierney is in the car. Have you worked with her on something? I have not. Oh, you haven't, okay. She's one of my absolute favorites. And when she's, you know, following you, chasing you in the car, and she starts tearing up, like, that's when I, like, really fully, like, broke. Oh, yeah. It really got me. But also, I guess, what, so what, like, really connected you when you read the script? Did you, was it like, oh, this is a meaty role, or did you have a connection to, like, addiction in your life, or saw it around you, or what did you think, oh, this could be my basketball diaries, or subconsciously, you know? No, I love that movie. That was a big reference point for this movie. And it's all the above, you know, in the crassest sense of the meaty role, but also, there were, you know, people in my life that went through similar stories, and this is really a movie I'll get, you know, people, if I come across, it'll stop me, and this is one that's always said with, like, reverence for the material. If someone brings it up to me in the street, it's never like, hey, I love Beautiful Boy. It's always like, hey, I saw that movie, thank you. Not that I get it all the time, but it's, hey, my family went through a similarly fucked up thing, or, so, and I'm not gonna give a, you know, a PSA right now on addiction and drug use, but whether it's Skid Row, which is 20, 30 minutes from here, or this is stuff that still affects people deeply, and, you know, I feel like a knock on the movie when it came out a little bit was, like, the kind of nice class, non-lower class setting, let's say, that you see the family in, and I was receptive to that when the movie came out. I definitely understood the grievance in that, you know, these issues are challenging across the board. They're more so challenging when you don't have access to resources, or any sort of financial backbone, but in watching it again today, I thought, oh, that's, to me, it helped resonate the message of the movie a little bit more, even, which is to say, yeah, this is an issue, especially in the United States, that knows no boundary, you know, it affects everyone, top to bottom, and it's a fucked up thing. It's a fucked up thing to go through when you're young. When you're, you know, when you're young, you're shopping for your personality, you're trying things on, you know, and if you're dealing with addiction, all of a sudden, you get this thing that's like, actually, you can't, you can't be gray about this, you can't be nuanced about this, it's all the things you would want to be a little more forgiving about, and growing up, all of a sudden, you have a black and white issue that you cannot go near, and it's something, I don't know about you, but I feel like in the US, we struggle, not that we struggle with more, but I feel like kids here, we just get people, young people just get addicted here, like, in a way that in Europe, obviously, this is like very pejorative, obviously, in Europe, there are addiction issues as well, but I always, I always feel like drinking culture in France, or England, or something, and how they handle it, at least on a perception level, cultural level, better, anyway, I didn't want to get into that, I don't know what the **** I'm talking about. Yeah. Was Nick on set? Nick and David on set? Did you talk to him a lot? I think it came to set once, Nick came to set once, yeah, I. Like, in preparing, did you talk to him, or talk to any, did you go to meetings, like, what was the, you know? Yeah, absolutely, and all sorts of meetings, you know, NA meetings, AA meetings, MA meetings, and a lot of talks with David and Nick, but, you know, kind of like the Dylan movie we did together, obviously, you know, then it's like, you're doing a representation on screen. Bob was not on set. No, exactly, no. Nowhere to be found. No, exactly, exactly. Hasn't seen the movie, we don't think. Yeah, probably, probably hasn't even seen it. Yeah, literally, so, exactly. Yeah, exactly, and it's also, like, struck me, and I guess, you know, editing plays, like, such a huge part, but was the script kind of, beautiful boy, was it structured in this way that it was kind of jumping around in time, and, like, so how did, obviously, we shoot, you know, out of chronological order all the time in films, but this is, like, a specific, you know, at his point in his addiction, was it hard, how did you track those moments so you knew where you were? Yeah, I think at the time, I had very sectioned out, you know, in a journal or something, where we were in the script, but I was watching the movie again today, too, it's really untraditional in its shape, and I think Felix, the director, he kind of had a European take in that regard, you know, an American film will follow a very traditional act one, act two, act three structure, and I think he was sort of rogue in that regard, so I definitely had it sectioned out, but that was, I think, the biggest swing Felix took with the material, because certainly, Beautiful Boy and North Tweek have that structure, you know, I think it was really Felix's imperative. And it seems like you also have, you're so good, you're so good at this, because I did this with Nolan the other day, and I couldn't, he would finish an answer, and I'd be staring at him, and I'd go, oh, ----, you know, I gotta get to the next thing. Well, now, I kind of want to talk a little general of, like, and I'm supposed to be looking at someone that's gonna give me a five or something, tell me when to wrap it up, but your sense of story and, like, picking projects, I mean, obviously, you auditioned for this, but you have to pick what you want to go after hard, and it's so good, and now you're producing, and you're nominated as a producer this year for Academy Award, for Marty Supreme as well, which is a really huge deal, and I saw kind of that in motion on A Complete Unknown, I mean, I loved kind of watching you have the producer hat on a bit, you felt, like, in charge in a way, but that also comes with picking projects, and, like, your track record on choosing roles and things is pretty golden, like, I was looking at your IMDb, and I'm like, that movie's great, that movie's great, that's really great, like, and that's really hard to do, I mean, I definitely have doozies, you know, I think I have the, actually, like, on Rotten Tomatoes, I have the worst score, Nutcracker in 3D, I was nine, so it's not my fault. Shit, I gotta see that. It's like negative zero percent, but you do not have that. No, I mean, if I wasn't working at nine, but Nutcracker in 3D, man, I gotta go check that out. What thing is it on, Paramount, or Hulu, or? Oh, God, no, we don't know, nothing, we don't know what, it's not on anything. You don't wanna plug that. Yeah. You wanna plug Sentimental Value, which you were just nominated for a Kennedy Award for, right? Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Right. Yeah. But I guess in a roundabout way, I guess, I was saying, how do you pick your projects? Like, I know kind of what I do, and it's very instinctual, but is it, like, has it changed over the years, how you've picked them? Did it used to be more, like, character, story, now it's more directors, or actors you wanna work with? No, I think it's all directors, but honestly, God, truth is, I feel like I haven't picked a project in, like, four years or something, because Marty Supreme is something I was working on with Josh forever, A Complete Unknown I was working on forever, a Dune sequel is, you know, The Journey is something that started in 2018, 2019, so, no, I mean, but whatever the next, yeah, really directors, yeah, just great, and where, like, does your drive come from? Because I just, because I know you're not an athlete, we know that, I think, right, and you're not, L with the heavy hitters, man. Well, you played basketball, but you weren't, like, a sportsman. No, well, I wanted to be a sportsman, I've never heard that, a sportsman. Yeah, a sportsman, but I really, like, I respect your discipline and your drive, because in this industry, it's not something that people speak a lot about, and I come from, like, a family of athletes, and so, and I've always kind of viewed my work as something that is athletic, in a sense, like, that discipline, like, I think there's a big correlation between acting and, like, and, and athletes, I don't know, athletics, whatever, that makes sense, but I just was curious if you always had that when you were young, or did it come from your parents, or is that something that, like, woke up in you later? No, I think I've always had that, I wanted to be an athlete growing up, so I consumed all the Nike commercials and everything, but it just didn't, it didn't materialize, so the dream they sold me was false, but then, no, I don't know, I think Marty just kind of, working on that, I was like, oh, a lot of these things can really fuse, and also, you know, just people of a competitive edge in what we do, it's rare to find someone that, you know, doesn't, I guess, I mean, you do come across them, but I just think it's, I don't know, I don't have a good answer for that, I mean, yeah, I feel like it's helped me stay driven, and I'm just talking about self-discipline and stuff, and also, as you all know, more than me, because you've been doing it since you were doing Nutcracker when you were nine years old, that, like, these things take a lot of time and energy, and you can get dragged through a film, or you can kind of be imperative through it, and it's really satisfying when you can be sort of like a lightning bolt, and you come out the other side exhausted and fried, but at least you feel like you did something. Yeah, and do you feel like you get nervous? Because I remember, I feel like I need to get nervous, like I need to feel kind of terrified and challenged before a project, and then I'd know that I'm in the right place, and I remember on A Complete Unknown on our first day, or my first day of working, I went to your trailer, and I was like, I'm actually, I'm really nervous because I haven't been on a film set in a long time, because I had done The Great, a TV show, and I played the same character for three years, and it was my first time playing a new character and being on a movie set, and I was like, I'm nervous, and then you looked at me, and you were like, how do you think I feel? I have to play Bob Dylan, and I'm like, oh, right, and I'm like, oh, God, sorry, but you didn't seem nervous to me at all, but is like nerves a secret ingredient for you? Absolutely, especially on that, more than anything, I remember you, I remember that, absolutely. I feel like the first week of anything is always very nerve-wracking, but then I settle in, but I loved on A Complete Unknown, you know, with you and Monica and Edward, we all took it so seriously. I did a Q&A with Edward the other night, and we were just saying, doing a music biopic, it's hard to keep it fresh, because you can feel, I said, ever since they made that movie Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story, it's hard to do music biopics that feel really fresh, and speaking to your nerves or my nerves, I feel like we took it really seriously, we weren't coasting at all, but yeah, definitely get nervous, yeah. And I guess, now we're going back to Beautiful Boy, I'm really bad at this. No, this is amazing, I'm so impressed. Is there anything, like, looking back on Beautiful Boy that you were most proud of, like a moment or a scene, or do you remember a time on set that you felt like, you know, you've never felt that before? I'm proud of how, I'm proud of coming to the other side of it and how heavy it was, and I think you're like this too, but I really, I look at, like, working on these movies as sacred, and the day on set as sacred, because anything otherwise would be like the weirdest business to be in if you were just treating it colloquially, or whatever the right word is. And now I have a certain support system, or comfort zone, or whatever, if I work on Dune 3 or whatever, I know the director, I'm old, I just turned 30, I'm older, let's say, but something like this, you know, I finished this, I remember finishing this and they had a taco truck when we wrapped, and like all the crew gathered and I had a taco, and then I walked off into LA, it was like the strangest, you know, I went through this. Did you shoot in LA? Yeah, we shot this all in LA, yeah. But I guess what I'm trying to say, and I'm very, say it again? Doesn't happen a lot. No, it doesn't happen at all. In a very ungraceful way is, I'm just so proud, whether it's this or Calling By Your Name, which we were filming all night, that I feel like to do these things without a real support system in place or financial stability, that I'm really proud of, because now I can go, like I said, there's like vested interest in my career or something, but then it was like nothing, so this was a heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, super heavy material, and you know, so anyway. Does it feel like a turning, did this film, or maybe looking back on it now, does it feel like it was a turning point for you, or more like just a meaningful chapter among many? No, absolutely, you know, no, it felt like a turning point. I feel like, I remember having a moment on this, it was the scene in the diner with Carell and I. Yeah, I was gonna ask about that scene. Yeah, but going back in the van or whatever with the rest of the cast and thinking, you know, I'd done Calling By Your Name the prior summer, and I had this sort of restlessness, I thought, wow, I feel like I'm doing good work, and I wonder if my career's ever gonna take off, and I remember this, that following summer, being with a friend in the East Village in New York, and in a way less graceful way than I'll say now, I just said, damn, you know, something to that extent, I said, I can't wait for my career to get going. I said it in a way more vulgar way than I wanna say it here, but like, the sentiment was grosser than how I'm expressing it, but like, you know, I was just, I was so restless. Big time. No, no, no, no, I was wanting that, you know what I mean, and so, this definitely felt like that, but also I felt, like I said, a restlessness, because I was like, you know, Calling By Your Name hadn't come out yet, and then I was doing this, and I thought, man, I feel like, I just hope these things work, that's how I felt, you know? And do you feel, the diner scene, I was gonna ask, was that, was there a lot of like ad-libbing in this? Yeah, you know, I was watching it back today, and I didn't remember it being so ad-libby, but I didn't, yeah. But it kinda had to be, because if you're in the moment, the ad-libbing really, I don't like it. I don't know, I mean, if I feel like I'm in, if I'm in it, or especially if it's like an emotional moment or a scene, I wanna feel free to do whatever, but I do kinda like to have the words, and then, I don't know, I need the structure of that. If someone's like, oh yeah, just, you know, you go and just say what you want, it's like, oh, that scares me a bit. But you're good at, because you did a lot of that in A Complete Unknown, I felt. Too, this felt like it needed that naturalism, and it's hard to do a movie about addiction and stuff without it falling into tropes of histrionics, and so, I think some of that helped me along, but I was surprised watching it today, too. There was a lot of naturalism in the ad-libbing. Yeah. I wanna also ask you, this is not being shown for your retrospective, but, you know, I don't know if it's gone viral again, but I see on the internet, the Miss Stevenson Death of a Salesman monologue. Okay, that's like the best thing ever. Yeah, hey, thank you. What is up with that? Like, I mean, I know people see, but now people realize, oh, that, like, that's Timothee Chalamet. Maybe they didn't know you liked that when that movie came out, but that's like one take, epic, unbelievable. That scene in that movie made me wanna do the movie, also because I saw Andrew Garfield and Philip Seymour Hoffman do Death of a Salesman on Broadway, and I was always, like, very moved by that scene, and we were supposed to do this last year, and then there were fires, there were a lot of the fires, but that was on the thing last year, so I love that movie, and I... Was that an audition scene? Yeah, that was, and weirdly... Oh, God, they always do that to you. Yeah, that was... Why? It's like the hardest scene. It's like, here you go, you're like... But that I was dying to do, because I was doing a movie called Love the Coopers in Pittsburgh, which, respectfully, I wasn't super stoked on being in. Hopefully, it's not disrespectful or anything, but like, you know, maybe I shouldn't have said that, but, you know, but it was while I was working on that, so Miss Stevens, the script to that, and also, I felt like it was my life story in that, you know, drama, acting, it's saved a young man's life, or something, and I absolutely loved working on that, and that was another one where I felt like I was breathless after, because I felt like no one saw that when it came out, but now it's become a little bit of a gem. It has, because that clip has been circulating again, because it's so good. I love that movie. Lily Rabe is extraordinary. I also wanted to say, I wanted to ask you, because I didn't say it to you at the luncheon. We were at the nominees luncheon the other day, and that's when we last saw each other, and I saw, and Josh was there, and we were talking, and he said that those class photos of the Oscars nominees class photos from the 1950s were inspiration for the Marty Supreme group photo with the paddle, and so I was like, oh, why didn't you bring the paddle to the photo? If you need any PR ideas, call me. No, I didn't even realize, but also, I don't know if that's true. I wonder if Josh was just saying that, but. He said, he said they were. He said they were, that genuinely inspired that. But do you see the Guillermo with the shining thing? That was awesome. That was really good. I actually, someone just told me that tonight. I didn't realize, I didn't put it together. I didn't realize it in the moment. Yeah, that was really good. Gosh, well, I feel like I've really asked you everything that's on my list. I'm like, is there anything else you want me to ask? No, thank you so much for doing this, and also, Elle was probably my favorite movie this year, Sentimental Value, and this is not a reverse plug. I absolutely loved that movie. She's fantastic in it, and Joaquin's an amazing director. Stupidly, I hadn't seen Worst Person in the World, and then I went back, and I watched it, and it's amazing, and I feel like he should've gotten nomination for A Complete Unknown, but at least he got it for Sentimental Value. I'll be watching and cheering when you get the Oscar. I'll vote for you. Yes. How old were you when you did this beautiful thing? I was 21. 21, okay, I was curious. So, yeah, your parents weren't on set or anything? No. Yeah, I didn't, well, I don't know, because, well, you were a child. Did your parents come with you on set like that? Yes, but it drove me so nuts. Yeah, it drove me insane, because my mom worked for Actors Equity in New York. Because we have that in common. Yeah, but my mom would be insane with producers, because she was so intense about the child labor laws, which was good, but it was also like, I'm trying to get in good with these people, so I'd be a minute over time, and she'd pull me off set. In fact, on Interstellar, I was 17, and I found a loophole in the content, whatever, in the working agreement, that if you had a high school diploma, but you were under 18, you could go work alone. And when I was with Nolan the other night, he brought it up, and he said, you know, when you wanted to come alone, you know, there's a big red flag to our production. Because we thought, like, wow, there's like this 17-year-old kid that wants to come alone. But who knew that was jeopardizing my opportunity to be in that movie? But I couldn't stand having a parent on set. It would drive me nuts, my poor mother. Pulling you, all right, you're done, yeah. I did this TV show, Royal Pains, and the first time she was like, like helicopter parenting me on set, and then the second time she came and sat with me, I made her sit in like an attic or something. Not like an attic, but like a separate room in the house, like you can't be, you can't, you know, you can't be near me. Oh no, but now she can celebrate with you. Now she can celebrate, yeah, exactly. So it's all good. Anyway, on that note. All right. Hey, thank you, Elle, so much. Big, big thank you, big thank you. And I got a jacket. Oh yeah, exactly, that was the extortion. That was the extortion. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thanks for checking that out. See you guys, thank you so much.