GQ UK November 2023
He lost the heartbroken juvenile in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name; he represents the student revolutionist in Wes Andersen’s The French Dispatch; he swallows his cannibalistic addiction in Guadagnino’s Bones and All; he owns a Chocolate Factory in Willy Wonka; he calls out as Savior Messiah in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and soon will perform A Complete Unknown Bob Dylan’s song with James Mangold. Born in Manhattan, NYC to an artistic family, a Russian and Austrian Jewish mother, and of French and English ancestry father, the most promising rising Hollywood golden boy, TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET, processes the boulevards to all the hot spots without any further casting audition.
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET has becoming the sort of Hollywood property whose presence in an otherwise borderline project could immediately get it green light. In GQ UK November 2023 issue, the cover boy is interviewed by Daniel Riley, whom and Chalamet had been met in Woodstock during 2020 summer, and photographed by Cass Bird outside an abandoned grain lift in Brooklyn, New York, together with Fashion Houses ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, HERMÉS, GUCCI, GIORGIO ARMANI, SAINT LAURENT, VALENTINO and CARTIER HIGH JEWELLERY. It turns out that the 20- page fashion campaign in November 2023 issue looks so fabulously attractive that GQ, definitely, needs to publish five various covers, as Timothée Chalamet never disappoints our visual pleasures on the red carpets, so why not collect them all?
Between the interview contents, Chalamet mentions that the onerous Covid moment, he stayed in the South of France with Hedi Slimane, in Paris with Haider Ackermann and in Rome and Milano with Luca Guadagnino after Dune wrapped in Budapest. It is the exact time that Chalamet takes his career paths much more seriously, and searches the balance of indulging the aching artist’s desire on one hand, and navigating the blessing and burden of celebrity on the other.
Despite getting hounded by photographers or recognized by fans, Chalamet still loves strolling around New York neighbourhoods on his own. “I am getting the same bacon, egg, and cheese at the same deli. Resisting any lifestyle change, because it is equalizing”, he said. Another force to keep himself calmer, is Chalamet’s grandmother, whom he’d been especially close to all his life: “She was always so supportive of my career, and she was also the voice in my ear to just live as normal a youth as possible.”
In 2022, Chalamet had never before had the ability to just pick right up with the same cast and crew, as he did with Dune. For Part One, said director Denis Villeneuve, “For Timothée it was his first big studio-movie experience. He had assurance, still he was kind of vulnerable, trying to find his focus and discovering how to protect his own bubble. And on Part Two, his character affects the whole crew as a deep ripple, and had learnt so much between films about how to secure his mindset and to own his personal space.”
After the most emotional climax of DUNE Part Two, an enormous set piece centres on a showdown between Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Butler’s Feyd-Rautha, Chalamet’s interest in the Austin Butler Playbook did not end. He has basically been working with Bulter’s entire Elvis team—dialect coach Tim Monich, Vocal coach Eric Vetro and movement coach Polly Bennett—for the upcoming Bob Dylan prep.
DUNE Part One, Chalamet had attached himself to Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa and Oscar Isaac, admitted that they are “generationally above”, “but I felt like I was without peers.” While DUNE Part Two marked the beginning of a new sense of self and purpose for Chalamet, who clearly embraced the opportunity and responsibility of standing in the centre of the frame in mass production films. The most important to Timothée is, that he is with talented peers and beloved friends.
The second coming, was in April 2023, with Martin Scorsese, filming a Bleu de CHANEL commercial in Queens, New York, presenting the new era of ambassador replace the late French actor Gaspard Ulliel. The result is another cunning facsimile of reality in which Chalemet sends up a caricature of himself. “It’s not lost on me that the only things I’ve shot since wrapping Dune,” he said, smiling, “are ads for billion-dollar companies satirising a version of my life.”
Chalamet’s efforts to push higher in his work dovetailed with his contribution to make ahead in his personal life. In both cases, the antagonist was the status quo – even if the status quo was much lauded and much loved. It was all part of growing up, of actively electing to evolve into the next version of Timothée Chalamet.
