A STAR-MAKING TRANSFORMATION
Melton, known for playing ‘Riverdale’ jock, found his process while preparing for breakout ‘May December’ role
It was an unseasonably rainy November day in Los Angeles, and I had gone to Charles Melton’s house with a dual mission. The first was to discuss the new film “May December,” in which the actor does more than just hold his own opposite Oscar-winning co-stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore: He gives the movie its bruised, beating heart.
And the second mission? Well, that was to make some truly excellent kimchi. Melton keeps his fridge so wellstocked with kimchi that he often sends friends home with jars of it. “Just remember, kimchi is a probiotic,” he said.
Six-foot-one, shaggy-haired and easygoing, Melton has the warm glow of a Himalayan salt lamp. Although he spent six years playing a conceited jock on The CW teen soap “Riverdale,” Melton wears his beauty and brawn as lightly as a nice jacket.
In “May December,” Melton plays Joe, a diffident 36-year-old father married to the much older Gracie (Moore). The two have seemingly managed to fashion a picture-perfect life — three children, two dogs and a beautiful home by the water — although the original sin of their union provides an awfully shaky foundation: They met when Gracie was a married housewife, and Joe was just a seventh grader. Tabloid infamy followed as Gracie was convicted of raping Joe, bore his baby in prison and, after serving a yearslong sentence, married him and had two more children.
Enter Elizabeth (Portman), an ambitious actor poised to play Gracie in a movie that will exhume the scandal this couple has worked so hard to move past. In a bid to have the story told their way, Gracie and Joe agree to let Elizabeth shadow them, but as the actor peppers the couple with invasive questions, poor Joe is finally forced to
Turn to Melton,