Timothée Chalamet
Elio
Timothée Chalamet is a young man going places. Quite literally, when he calls us on his way from the airport where he’s just landed in Toronto for a premiere of a film you just might have heard of, Call Me By Your Name. The 21-year-old New Yorker is, at this point, still in the early stages for promotion of Luca Guadagnino’s poignant story of gay love in 80s Italy. It took the Sundance Film Festival by storm earlier this year – word of mouth was on an almost unheard of level. And now, at last, it’s finally about to be unleashed to the world at large.
And Timothée is a young man who’s ready. If he can calm down that is.
“I’m buzzing!” he exclaims from the car he’s sharing with his mother and her best friend. “This is such a dream come true to be able to come to this festival with a movie like this.”
Born and raised in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, Timothée studied at LaGuardia – a performing arts school. He appeared in commercials and horror shorts before roles Off-Broadway and in television series such as Homeland steered his path somewhat.
We’re peach-deep in conversation when suddenly he shouts out, “How are you doing?! I didn’t even ask you! How are you doing?” He did ask, and we’re well, thank you.
Aside from being polite, he talks long, fast and intently, yet often loops back and corrects himself on using an incorrect term, or where he thinks he might sound ungrateful or similar. ‘First world problems’ is something he often repeats, although we’re all guilty of that. Somewhat endearingly – as though it’s possible he could be more endearing – he says ‘shoot’ instead of swearing.
Timothée’s journey to Crema – and critical acclaim – has taken a little longer than expected. Take a deep breath, we’re going in...
“It’s been a three and a half year, four year process,” he recalls. “Initially Peter Spears was the producer that had the rights to the book, he’s had them since the rights were offered, and they were putting together versions for a while. And by versions I just mean I think they had ideas of people they wanted to direct it, and ideas of people they wanted to play Elio and Oliver, but it never quite came together.
“And when James Ivory and Luca
Guadagnino got involved, then it really started to pick up steam. So I met with James Ivory, it would have been September of my freshman year in college, so literally like four years ago now, almost to the day cos it would’ve been September/October, around there, and kind of got the sign-off from James. And then had lunch with Luca, and got the sign off from him, and then I was loosely attached for three years.
“But y’know,” he chuckles, “I learned very quickly, in show business, you can be a part of a project, where the majority of the project that you’re a part of never comes to fruition because it is so hard. Any movie that gets made, any piece of art that gets made is a miracle in and of itself. So I’m happy we got it done when we did, and to do it with Armie Hammer was an absolute dream. That was one of my favourite actors before I worked with him, and the opinion didn’t change at all, it only was bettered, having worked with him. And to work with Luca Guadagnino was an absolute dream because I Am Love and A Bigger Splash, which I hadn’t seen when I initially met with him, but a year into knowing him, got to see, they were such masterclasses in film-making.
“He’s a master of sensuality, a master filmmaker, and it’s so thrilling to work with that from an actor perspective. I’d never really been around someone before Luca that I felt lived and breathed film-making, it oozes from his body, it oozes from his pores, in addition to this sensuality that finds its way into every frame of the movie by way of his touch.”
He takes a breath. “Shoot, I rambled for a little bit.”
We ask how a project like this, with ‘sensitive’ content, gets pitched to actors. Timothée laughs.
“I really love that, because I’m not even really sure they pitched it, in so much as I pitched myself! It’s so rare to find roles as a young actor, and I’m a broken record here, of myself and of every other young actor that’s
said this, but it’s a great problem, I mean it’s a non-problem when you think about it, what a first-world problem to have, but there aren’t these complex meaty roles in abundance, they tend to be more like surface level characters, not even by way of the stories, but just by way of whatever the tone of the piece is. So, just to be in front of Luca’s camera almost, was to get to toy around with a character that was so meaty and complex and sad and in love and tortured and ecstatic. I felt like this film was exactly what I should be doing.”
He’s quick to quash any thought that there may have been reservations in taking the part: “I went to the LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts, the arts welcomes everyone. I never grew up with a stigma, or these stereotypes, let alone almost an awareness of them, and I guess it’s where the privilege comes in, to grow up in New York, to grow up in midtown Manhattan, but I just, in a very, again privileged sense, didn’t and don’t have the mechanism to really judge in a positive or negative fashion, sexuality or gender identity, or things of that nature.”
There were, however, reservations that certain scenes might have been more risqué. “Yes, yes!” he gasps. “Certainly the peach scene, above all,” he says of the moment where Elio masturbates using the fruit. “It felt risqué certainly in the physical reality of the scene, but it felt more risqué in the idea of, ‘How can we do this truthfully, how are we gonna get this across without it feeling disingenuous and huge, and even worse without it feeling underplayed’.
“I feel like the reason any of these things came on at all is all thanks to Luca, I think that came on that day because he was just such a common presence on set, and treated that scene the way every other scene was treated.”
It’s later revealed that not only did Luca try the scene at home, so did Timothée.
“Well I think experience is the best teacher,” he laughs. “Luca had the brilliant idea to have us out there a month early, so when it did come time to do those scenes we had been around each other for two months at that point. So any sort of artificial awkwardness that would come with shooting a movie on a stage, or shooting a movie in LA, to be sequestered in a small town in Italy for two months, and then to be shooting on one lens, it takes away a lot of the nerves around that kind of stuff.”
Talking of ‘that kind of stuff’, did filming also see him experience that gay man rite of passage – stubble rash?
“I don’t know what that is!” We explain.
“Oh, very interesting, hmmm, hmmm,” he considers. “I guess now that you bring it up, yeah, I mean he’s not clean shaven in the movie…”
“The idea young gay people will see this film and see an avenue that wasn’t there for them before is beyond an honour.”
He laughs when we note that he does seem to spend a lot of the film with very little clothes on.
“Oh, well, shoot, I didn’t really think about it until now, but Luca had me with a gym trainer for a month before we shot, and I think it was for that purpose, because it was in both of our heads that because it is a summer movie, and following the truth of what that would be, it would be relaxing out in the sun, or in the pool with your friends, wearing next to nothing. I think he had it in mind to make it presentable!” he laughs.
We refer to the movie as iconic – because it is, whatever is to come – and he can’t be more grateful. We describe reactions from a handful of people that have seen the film and he expels air. “Oh man, that is so overwhelming.”
So it’s not lightly, and we think we some earned authority, that it’s safe to assume he and Armie will forever be associated with this couple. People will take them with them.
“Oh, I am absolutely honoured. To be a part of the story that is so timely, as it relates to, it’s an absolute, like…” he stumbles again. “It’s hard for me to even put into words. Because, at the Sundance Film Festival, some people would raise their hands at the end of the film, and it didn’t hit me until then. Up until that point, it just felt like a project that – like you feel at the end of any project – you’re proud to have been a part of. But somebody raised their hand and then, spoiler alert, discussed the [Michael] Stuhlbarg monologue at the end, and they said something along the lines of, they’d never had a father to say that to them, as a gay man, and that absolutely floored me.
“It was really from that moment on, kind of what you’re describing, I thought, ‘Wow,’ for every person that sees this film that is past that struggle in their life and can identify and go back to that moment, but even more importantly, even more movingly – if that’s a word – is the idea that people will see this film, particularly young people, particularly young gay people, and see an avenue for themselves that wasn’t presented to them before, so to answer that – what’s it like? – if it happens like that, because one never knows, things aren’t seen, but if it were to be well-received, or if it continues in the fashion that it has been received, it would be beyond an honour to be associated.
“It seems very important what this publication does. I was just reading a headline that you guys have on your website right now, something along the lines of hate crimes have gone up 78% in the LGBT+ community since 2013. You read stuff like that, and not in a self-narrative, objective sense, not in an aggrandising sense, but rather in an ensemble sense, I can maybe get to be another cog in the mission to move this cause forward.
“It’s really moving, a little overwhelming but ultimately very gratifying to think about.”
Finally, how does it feel potentially forever, to be associated with a peach?
“Fucking awesome.”