Reader Beware — Timothée Chalamet Might Devour You
CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Cynthia Littleton
Almost six years ago, Timothée Chalamet talked to Variety as he was about to board an airplane for the Sundance premiere of “Call Me by Your Name.” The actor, then 21 and best known for a recurring role on “Homeland,” claimed that he hadn’t seen the indie movie that would change his life. “I’m trying to hold out,” he explained. “I want to see it in the theater, too, for the first time.” When we talked to Chalamet again 10 months later, he was in the bubble between when a movie premieres at a film festival and when it gets released to the public, a pocket of time where he could retain his anonymity. He still rode the subway in New York. Did his fellow commuters recognize him? “Not at all.”
Variety has a tradition of closely covering the careers of the biggest movie stars in the world, and we’re glad to have been with Chalamet since day one. Nowadays, though, he’s a bit more in demand, and far less likely to be spotted on public transportation. In fact, if you want to get a glimpse of Chalamet — whose career continues to explode, from
Ramin Setoodeh
“Little Women” to “Dune” — you’ll need to camp out. Last weekend, when the actor’s latest movie, “Bones and All,” premiered in Milan, Chalamet’s fans showed up in such great numbers, police had to shut down the red carpet over security concerns. (Head over to Variety.com to see a video of the mob scene.)
That’s what we call star power. “Bones and All,” based on the 2015 horror novel by Camille Deangelis, reteams Chalamet with “Call Me by Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino, the Italian auteur who’s drawn to provocation and surprise. In this case, he’s found an unconventional love story — about two cannibals who are on the run, devouring each other (romantically) and their victims (literally). Guadagnino, Chalamet and the film’s heroine, played by Taylor Russell, are all featured on the cover of this week’s issue with a profile written by our Italy correspondent Nick Vivarelli. We hope you enjoy this feast — and we thank Timothée Chalamet for keeping our readers so well fed.