Timothée Chalamet is raking in the Best Actor wins for Marty Supreme, after scoring the Critics Choice and Golden Globe, and on Grammy Sunday adding the London Film Critics’ Circle trophy, which he accepted in person. While in Londontown, Timmy did a Q&A event with British filmmaker Richard Curtis. I’d call it a bit of promo for his film, but according to Timmy’s answers during the conversation, he would not call it that. To him, a stunt like staging a hilariously earnest (yet fake) Zoom meeting is not mere marketing, but a new way of reaching audiences that allows him to be artistic and creative. Same explanation goes for why he pulled double duty on SNL last year, as both host and musical guest, when promoting supporting his Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Timmy C is not a musical artist (at least… not yet!), which is why SNL creator Lorne Michaels gave a flat “No” to his request to do the music. But Timmy countered with “Double duty or nothing,” to the tune of paying six figures of his own money to make the musical performance happen.
During a live conversation with filmmaker Richard Curtis in London over the weekend, Timothée revealed that Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL, wasn’t initially on board with the idea of him doing double duty.
“Lorne Michaels said, ‘Hey, do you want to host SNL?’ I said, ‘Yeah, can I do the music?’ He’s like, ‘No.’ I said, ‘All right, I’m not doing it,’” he remembered, saying that he “refused to take no for an answer.”
Eventually, Lorne agreed, but Timothée’s hard work was not over. “I spent over six figures out of my pocket to do the SNL performance,” he shared.
He didn’t go into detail about why this happened or exactly how the money was spent. However, a source told Entertainment Weekly that Timothée paid for production expenses for his musical performances, including the band’s fees and set construction costs.
Typically, these costs are covered by an artist’s record label, which could explain why Timothée wound up personally footing the bill.
But, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Timmy in the past couple of years, it’s that he has very specific ideas about how he wants to promote his movies, and he’s willing to do everything in his power to make it happen.
“I really don’t look at it as promotion or as marketing. I see myself as an artist expanding… This is the new way of doing stuff. I’m trying to reach audiences. I don’t want to be in the pretentious in-crowd,” Timothée explained during his recent conversation. “Marty Supreme in America had the least frequent moviegoing audience this year — people that weren’t going to see everything. That’s my favorite feedback on the movie. So the most pretentious answer I could give you, which I actually honestly feel, is that it’s not marketing or promotion. That sounds like a gimmick, and this is not a gimmick. This is coming from my heart and my soul.”
Alls I can say is, it’s fitting that Timothée Chalamet is picking up so many awards for playing a ping pong prodigy in Marty Supreme, because if there’s one thing this kid has in spades, it’s balls. The chutzpah on him, my word! And I’m not even all that turned off by him in this uber confident mode, because, well, I think he’s being really honest. He is finding a new way of doing the performance of promoting your work, and it’s authentic for him. (Remember, that SNL where he did double duty was when he brilliantly enlisted the finalists of his lookalike contest.) He gets to feel artistically stretched and sure, that sounds a bit pretentious. But, again, it feels more honest than the Serious Actors who don’t want to be seen as frivolous OR, paradoxically, as caring too much. Timmy had comments on that too, telling Richard Curtis, “That’s why I try to own it. I’m not shying away from it, I’m not being fake humble where I don’t feel it. And equally, I’m leaving it behind for someone that I hope I’m inspiring. So if they’ve got a f–ked up life, they can go, ‘Man, but he’s f–king doing it. And I want to do it like that.’” Plus at the end of the day, isn’t Timmy’s approach refreshing?
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Getty Images and via Instagram
For someone who says they don’t want to be in the pretentious in-crowd, demanding that you do a musical act because you’ve pretended to play a famous musician is certainly a choice.
He learned to play the guitar and did all his own singing. Doing the musical act in SNL was key to promoting the film. IMO it just shows how old school Lorne Michels is in refusing. Timmy was right to hold his stand. He already hosted the show once so they would have known he’s capable of doing everything.
Which obviously means he didn’t pay anything out of his pocket so that’s a lie3. Anything for promo. I find him basic and pretentious. Heaps better actors than him,but he’s got the silicone sack babe to keep the promo going
He was good in that role, but learning to sing and play the guitar like Bob Dylan still doesn’t make you a musician.
Agreed, I’ve got TC fatigue. It feels like he’s trying way, WAY too hard these days
Me too, but either he’ll turn out to be the gift to mankind he seems to think he is, or he’ll go away.
I just read he’s mentioned in the Epstein files. Good grief.
Surely he’s way too young?
Woody Allen’s wife, Soon-Yi Previn, called Timothée Chalamet a “prick” in Epstein files after he donated ‘A Rainy Day in New York’ fee to charity. He donated his fee to a LGBTQ charity because he didn’t want to profit from working on the film since he regretted working with Allen.
He’s so cringe.
It’s a toss-up for me as to who’s more unappealing and unattractive, Chalamet or Bradley Cooper.