The Making (and Re-Making) of Timothée Chalamet
BY DANIEL RILEY /Â PHOTOGRAPHY BY RENELL MEDRANO
He found superstardom and artistic acclaim instantaneously. Now, with unique candor, the actor of a generation reveals what itâs like to come of age in our very upside-down era.
The day after the Oscars in 2018, everything that had changed, changed back again. TimothĂ©e Chalamet had spent the previous months becoming known. He had acted in a film, Call Me by Your Name, which was critically acclaimed as well as an instant object of cultish admirationâand his performance had made him, at 22, the youngest person nominated for best actor in 80 years. He had, simultaneously, been transformed into the rarest of pop confectionsâfawned over by younger women, older men, and every demographic in between. And he had traveled without pause on the awards circuit since early autumn, back and forth from New York and Los Angeles, practically living out of the first-class lounge and the lobbies of the Bowery Hotel and the Sunset Tower.
But the day after the Oscars, the moment the clock struck midnight and his carriage turned into a pumpkin, Chalamet was right back where heâd been before the whole fantasy had begun: in New York, with no credit card, no apartment, and no longer any structured demands on his time and attention. Outsiders who had witnessed the arrival may have regarded this 22-year-old as being in possession of wealth and clout, but he was suddenly back on his own dime, which amounted to maybe five or six dimes, reticent to stay with family and friends whose lives he felt he was disrupting with all his new baggage. Of course they couldnât possibly comprehend the chemical reaction that had just transpired. They were still hydrogen and oxygen, and TimothĂ©e Chalamet was all of a sudden water.
And so, for three weeks, he disappeared into the wallpaper of the Lower East Side. Specifically, the wallpaper of a little apartment that the French street artist JR kept for visiting collaborators. Chalamet holed up against the ugly New York weather of late winter, and did the only thing he could think to do: learn lines. The King would be his first film since his pivot into fame, and he was anxious to get back to acting after such a long stretch of merely talking about acting. Even more, he needed to blot out the unrecognizable icon the internet was already beginning to make of Timothée Chalamet.
I met TimothĂ©e for the first time at the onset of that initial blush of fame, when all of us were being introduced to an actor who had both rare talent and the un-engineerable it that chings like an audible sparkle off a jewel in a cartoon. I wrote a story for this magazine about that first chapter in the arrival of a film star. This is the second chapter, the story of whatâs happened since. It wasnât evident yet, but those three weeks in New York in 2018 were the starting line of what would amount to a 30-month stretch of four new films, two new Oscar campaigns, some refreshing romance, an incessant awareness of the confusing image of himself asâwhat else to call it?âan emerging global movie star, and a constant concerted effort to figure himself out as both a young actor and a young person in the unceasing spotlight.
This summer, we were talking about all this on a little screened porch out back of a modest cabin in Woodstock when Chalamet recalled those three weeks. âMy world had flipped,â he said. âBut if I kicked it with my friends, things could still feel the same. I was trying to marry these two realities. But I donât even think I knew that was what I was doing. That dissonance was real. And thank God. Because I feel like if Iâd caught up to it immediately, I wouldâve been a psychopath or something.â
Out on that porch, I asked him a version of the same question over and over: What had the last two and a half years been like for him, as a human being? His response was a multi-hour monologue that I would characterize as: intense. He expressed unadulterated gratitude for his great good fortune. But he also expressed confusion and tension. He is firmly in a moment when he is concerned that everything he says or does or thinks will look or sound wrong. He backtracked a lot (âWait, let me try that againâ). He jumped on and off the record (âSorry, sorry, sorry, this is just for youâŠâ). It was important for me to know, he said, in order to communicate the context of his experience, if not the specifics.
âI want to get back to the undefined space again. Iâm chasing a feeling.âÂ
He lives in the same world all of us doâonly with the potential for adoration and blowback turned up to 11. He seems, at once, to trust his own instincts while also second-guessing most thoughts the moment heâs convinced of them. It is an exhausting way to be. At times, when he was up on his feet, in his T-shirt and shorts, pacing around the little screened porch, hands tugging at his mane, I could feel the gears grinding to the point of smoke. He wanted so desperately to get this right, to express what he really meant, to feel the right feelings, to live the right way, to be the right kind of man for the people in his life that he knows he can and should be, despite everything else, despite the noise. Heâs doing his best.
TimothĂ©e had rented the house for the month of July, as a little escape but also as an opportunity. He was slated to play Bob Dylan in a new biopic. No telling when it might film, given everything, but for now he had more time to himself than heâd had in years, which meant time to maybe huff the vapors of some Woodstock Dylanalia. âItâs not like Iâm suffering from lack of connection otherwise,â he said, âbut it just really feels like Iâm connecting to something here.â When he arrived, he discovered that his little house had a wall devoted to Dylanâto the albums heâd recorded in the run-up to his timeout in Woodstock in the late â60s. TimothĂ©e relished happening upon that wall his first day in the Airbnb. The universe offered signs if you nudged it toward coherence.
He knew what the cabin might seem likeâlike some young actor taking himself way too seriously, âtreating himself like an artist.â But he was back and forth between Woodstock and New York all month, bombing up and down the interstate in the Honda sedan heâd rented from Enterprise. (He learned how to drive on Beautiful Boy.) All the while Dylan was top of mind. TimothĂ©e was late to the party but helplessly obsessed. He quoted him generously. He fixated on both the art and the persona. He marveled at the way the artist could be out there so much, making such an impact, while also keeping the real person obscured behind the music, the characters in the songs, the language. In the city, we spent time walking around Greenwich Village, TimothĂ©e in an identity-concealing face mask and bucket hat and sunglasses, able to search out old Dylan addresses in an invisibility cloak. He ran from site to site, with notes heâd kept while reading Dylanâs memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, barreling up stairs and peering into windows. He was a 24-year-old actor, taking advantage of the pause between the second phase of his career and the third and thinking hard, daily, about how to play the next few years.
He rented the house in Woodstock, too, so that he could have a little space all to himself. He craved the privacy to try things and to fuck up. To make small mistakes now, out of view, when it was just him, when he was still young, so that he didnât have to worry about it later. At one point, he stood up and slapped an empty water bottle off the table so that it clattered against the screen of the porch. âI want to know what that sounds like!â he shouted. He hadnât taken many missteps yet, and it made him uncomfortable, wary, that he would someday. The month felt like a controlled burn. In the most innocent way, that was what Woodstock was about. He got to practice his guitar and harmonica in peace, cook himself his âshitty pastaâ without judgment, permit himself space to keep growing up. So much was in the spotlight now. But in that cabin, he could sit on the couch for a while and re-familiarize himself with âthe crease in the cushionâ that heâd lost touch with over the past few years. The quiet. The stillness. That sunlight there coming through the trees. He could breathe a little. Sleep a little. It had all been so good for him so far. But the goodness made him anxious. When will the other shoe drop? Not there. Heâd deleted Instagram off his phone. Heâd stopped posting on Twitter. He was reading again. Listening to albums all the way through. Slowing down. What was it like to have lived these past two and a half years? It was like a lot of things, but here at the end of it, it just felt good to sleep.
Back at the start of the 30-month run that led to Woodstock, TimothĂ©e turned over the keys to JRâs studio and went to Europe to shoot The King. The role was like none of the films heâd just received notice for. âHere I am on set with all these Hungarian men with scars on their faces, and theyâre like, âYouâre the center of the shot, youâre the badass! And we know you tried to put on all this weight, but like: Youâre wearing all the chain mail.â If they took the chain mail off, my throat is still this bigâŠâ There he was trying to keep in perspective this new fame, this new validation, this new temptation toward ego, all while being thrust into the center of âsomething called The motherfucking King.â
When he returned to New York that summer, he skipped off the atmosphere again with another awkward reentry. One moment he was on the battlefield of the biggest-budget drama heâd yet experienced, the next he was âback in New York, on the A/C/E at Port Authority, just like, What the fuck is going on?â It was a pattern over the past few years. The calmly intense immersion into work, the âthud of lost purpose,â as he called it, when the work ended. It happened the same way in the fall of 2018 with Little Womenâreunited with Greta Gerwig and Saoirse Ronan and the crew from Lady Bird. There was just an ease with which he plugged in with them, âa vocabulary of friendshipâ that existed there.
TimothĂ©eâs career thus far has been filled with these sorts of friendships, notably those across generational lines. Even a casual observer may have picked up on it. Those glommings-on to older people in his life. Armie Hammer. Kid Cudi. Greta Gerwig. When I asked Gerwig to comment on the arc sheâs witnessed up close, from Lady Bird to Little Women, she wrote a note about âmy friend Timmyâ: âItâs hard for me now, because Iâm his friend, to see him strategically.⊠I love talking to him. We can get on the phone and talk for an hour or more without even realizing it, just skipping from subject to subject, making jokes, me feeling old and happy and him being funny and anxious and delightfully all over the place.â Itâs an odd gap he finds himself inâforced to be more accelerated than most 24-year-olds while also having not lived enough life yet to fit in absolutely with the people he enjoys spending time with most. On a recent visit with his grandmother in New York, she surprised him by saying, âI wish you would hang out with people your own age more often. It must be so weird.â It made him chuckle. Even sheâd noticed. She might be right. But how could he resist the orbit of these creative geniuses heâd so long admired and who were filled with so much knowingness?
âIâm confident in the way Iâm trying to approach things now, how Iâm setting up the angles.â
In the winter of 2019, another Oscar campaign left him feeling disoriented all over again. Everything, TimothĂ©e said, was exactly the same as the first time except him. Heâd put in this undeniable performance, but maybe one that sparked a little less for Oscar voters than that first kiss with a stranger. Now he was in all the same rooms as before, the same lunches and dinners and cocktail parties, shaking hands with the same Academy members who showed up at everything to get a little nibble of the freshest biscuit, growling ominous things at him, like: You donât have my vote yet.⊠âI really donât know how to talk about this stuff, man,â he told me, âbecause my experience of it is at the center of it. Thereâs just some dark energy at these things, and this time around I felt like I could see it. And yet Iâm thinking, Why isnât this going the exact same way?â
He wasnât nominated for Beautiful Boy, but the fresh air came, as it always seemed to, on the set of the next film: Wes Andersonâs The French Dispatch. The movie is about a fictional English-language magazine (based on The New Yorker of the midcentury) and is structurally organized like the magazine itself, featuring short pieces at the âfrontâ of the movie and a triptych of long features at the back. TimothĂ©e costars in the second feature, about a May '68-style student-protest leader named Zeffirelli and the middle-aged magazine journalist (Frances McDormand) assigned to report on his cause.
âI had seen Timmy in Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name,â Anderson wrote to me, âand I never had the inconvenience of ever thinking of anybody else for this role even for a second. I knew he was exactly right, and plus: He speaks French and looks like he might actually have walked right out of an Ăric Rohmer movie. Some time around 1985. A slow train from Paris, a backpack, a beach for 10 days in bad weather. Heâs not any kind of typeâbut the New Wave would have had a happy place for him.â
The privilege of early fame that TimothĂ©e most appreciates is the ability to choose the directors he works with. His role in The French Dispatch is a minor one, but itâs a Wes Anderson movieâitâs as simple as that. Due to the episodic nature of the film, some of the other âstoriesâ were already being shot when TimothĂ©e arrived in AngoulĂȘme, a town that reminded him of the one he spent time in growing up, âso French it was like a caricature,â he said. TimothĂ©e had the opportunity, then, to hang with some of the elders he doesnât act with, like Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray, and other seasoned members of the Wes Anderson troupe. âIt was immediately as if it wasnât his first time with our group,â Anderson explained. âHe was somehow already part of the family. The youngest member.â
TimothĂ©e had seen McDormand around for years, but heâd never felt like she was someone he could approach. âWeâd shared an agent,â he said. âAnd it was no disrespect to me, but I hadnât been in any movies yet. What business do I have talking to Frances McDormand? But now, and this is the gift of acting, I really feel myself coming into my own as a community of thespians, as opposed to actors. And man, that sounds pretentious, but I just mean itâs not about the fucked-up ladder of success and un-success, and being the guy or the girl, and then being off the list⊠Thatâs not what Iâm talking about with her on set, thatâs not what sheâs espousing to me. Sheâs talking about a long career. Sheâs talking about marriage with a creative partner and consultant. So to be able to have conversations like that and then a story line in the movie where theyâre kind of on an equal field? Even if sheâs an experienced, wise woman and heâs an idealistic, naive boy? Thatâs the exact relationship of exchange I want with my intergenerational peers.â
Thereâs a particularly memorable scene in The French Dispatch, reporter and subject having fallen into bed together, when thereâs a knock at the door. TimothĂ©e looks at McDormand, anxious about whoâs there, mortified when McDormand informs him itâs his mother. There, in that scene, we see all the desire of Zeffirelliâthis energetic young man with all the right intentions, who strains to be intellectually and emotionally riperâclash with the reality of his age. It felt familiar to me, and no doubt to TimothĂ©e. It was some of my favorite acting in the film. I asked McDormand if there was anything in their scenes that struck her as particularly mature for someone his age. âMaturity is not something a fellow actor is the most concerned with,â she said. âPlayfulness, discipline, and rigor. I do recall, during our scene in bed, the crew responding to his work with true respect for his focus. He was bringing it and we sat up and paid attention.â Anderson added: âI think my favorite moments with Timmy during a scene were the ones where I saw him pause and find a new attack. A new angle, which he does very clearly and assertively. What I love is how he will surprise you with something new, completely unexpected and perfect.â
One night, while McDormand was shooting a scene without TimothĂ©e, her husband, Joel Coenâhe of the Brothersâasked TimothĂ©e if he wanted to go out for a steak. Over dinner, TimothĂ©e grilled Coen about Dylan. He knew Coen was a fan and had steeped in it on Inside Llewyn Davis. âHe almost seemed weary of even talking about this stuff, it was so big and potent,â TimothĂ©e told me. But Coen noted that the truly incredible thing about Dylan was not so much the quality, which was obvious, but the quantityâthe rapid amount of work in short succession, one groundbreaking album after another, in those early years. That takeaway resonated deeply with TimothĂ©e. Especially as he reflected on it from summer 2020, during the pause, during the moment of no work. That gush from Dylan made him want to workâharder, longer, better, more.
A week after our conversation in Woodstock, TimothĂ©e and I were in New York City, sitting on a bench along the Hudson, talking about what heâs looking for when work resumes. âI want to get back to the undefined space again,â he said. âIâm chasing a feeling. When you think youâre doing some great thing, itâs probably something youâve done before, and when you really fucking have no clue, thatâs when youâre doing something on the edge, good or bad.â
TimothĂ©eâs mask had slipped down his face as he was saying this, and two young women, about his age, approached cautiously. âWould you mind if we got aâŠ,â they asked, and he hopped up without hesitation. âHowâd you recognize me?â he said, friendly, but genuinely curious, as if he hadnât just been shouting about art in a voice that sounded a lot like Laurie from Little Women or Timmy from late-night shows.
âWas it the scrawny limbs or the hair?â I asked him as he sat back down.
âDefinitely the first.â
From France, last spring, it was straight to Hungaryâright back to the exact apartment in Budapest heâd stayed in while shooting The Kingâto start work on Dune. Very few actors had become as famous without a blockbuster. And while heâd really gotten it down how to act on an indie set, how to make every second and every take count, he knew this would be something altogether different. It wasnât just the shoot that would prove taxing. A film of Duneâs scale would likely be the can opener to a whole other stratum of Hollywood prominence.
Director Denis Villeneuve told me TimothĂ©e was his âfirst and only choiceâ to play Paul Atreides, âthe one name on the page.â When they met to discuss the prospect, Villeneuve told TimothĂ©e how happy he was to finally meet the young actor. And TimothĂ©e had to remind him that theyâd met before, when TimothĂ©e read for Villeneuveâs Prisoners. â âOf course!â â Villeneuve remembered. âHe did a great audition, but he didnât physically fit the part. He was probably swearing at me because I didnât take him.â TimothĂ©e was party to so many stories like that oneâglancing interactions with these heroes of his before heâd broken through. It reminded me of the relationship between freshmen and seniors in high school. The freshmen remember everything about the seniors; the seniors hardly notice the freshmen. But we all become peers eventually.
âI felt there was one being on this planet right now that would be able to portray Paul Atreides,â Villeneuve saidâreferring to the hero of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel, who transforms from an unassuming heir into a messiah figure, a charismatic outsider and commander of men and women (and sandworms). I read Dune for the first time this summer and was shocked by the source material, how much Iâd consumed in culture that had borrowed from it. Star Wars. Alien. The Matrix. Game of Thrones. Paul, therefore, is a type weâre familiar with but also possessing singular characteristics Villeneuve wanted TimothĂ©e for: âHe has a deep, deep intelligence in the eyes. Something you cannot fake. The kid is brilliant. Very intellectual, very strong. And you see that in the eyes. He also has a very old soul. You feel that he has already lived through several lives. And at the same time, he looks so young on camera. Sometimes heâd look almost 14 years old. He has this kind of general youth in his features and the contrast with the old-soul quality in his eyesâitâs a kid that knows more about life than his age. Finally: He has that beautiful charisma, the charisma of a rock star. That Paul will lead the whole population of a planet later. TimothĂ©e has that kind of instant charisma onscreen that you can find only sometimes in the Old Hollywood stars from the '20s. Thereâs something of a romantic beauty to him. A cross of aristocracy and being a bum at the same time. I mean, TimothĂ©e is Paul Atreides for me. It was a big relief that he agreed, because I had no plan b.â
âIf I get hit by a truck next week, Iâm looking at 20 to 23, I donât know if you can top that.â
I asked Villeneuve if he noticed TimothĂ©e struggling at all to adjust to the larger-scale production. âIt didnât show when he was on set, but I think for him the big thing was to learn how to create his own bubble on set. So that he would not have to try to be the friend of everyone. When youâre on a smaller set, when thereâs 25 people, you can be friendly with 25 people. When thereâs 800 people around, you cannot be friends with 800 people.â He chuckled. âItâs too much. So how to save your energy, how to focus, how to give himself permission to be in his bubble and make sure that his bubble is respected.â
As ever, TimothĂ©e had a special affinity with those people on set who were a little older, a little wiser. Villeneuve said TimothĂ©e was constantly speaking with him and his wife in this open, vulnerable way about his concerns, his fears, how to deal with certain pressures. Villeneuve also described for me TimothĂ©eâs relationships with his fellow actors, particularly the trio of Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, and Jason Momoa. âI felt like TimothĂ©e was deeply seducedâor maybe not seduced, but I just felt it was like a kid being with older brothers,â Villeneuve said. âHe was younger, he was the little one on set, and everybody loved him. Thereâs a scene in the movie where TimothĂ©e runs into the arms of Jason Momoa, and Jason grabs him like a puppy and lifts him into the air like he was a feather. And thatâs real! They really loved each other. It was very beautiful to see this young man being influenced by these people he admires.â
âHis positive energy is infectious,â Zendaya, his nearest peer in the film, told me. âHe really is so much fun to be around. We have very similar humor, and we can keep a joke going for a long time, but when the cameras start rolling and itâs time to work, you can see itâs game time, and he just taps into this brilliant intensity. Itâs awesome to witness.â Villeneuve underlined the energy as well, describing for me just having seen TimothĂ©e the night before we spoke, and marveling at âthat beautiful, strong candor.â
âI will say that looking at TimothĂ©e working, I had a deep feeling that I was watching the birth of something,â Villeneuve added. âNot that itâs for meâI say that with humility, because I feel that birth in all the movies heâs done so far. Iâm feeling itâs someone that has insane potential. When I say potential, I donât want to reduce what heâs doing right now, not at all. Itâs just that sometimes you are in front of somebody and you have the feeling you are in contact with a strong artist and that artist, his identity is still growing, building itself, learning its boundaries, learning how to protect some part of it. I think that we are witnessing something beautiful right now.â
At the end of summer 2019, TimothĂ©e finally resurfaced from Planet Dune. He had been on social media only sporadically while shooting for most of 2019, and so, for his vast base of fans, it was an overdue glimpse of the object of their affection. First up was the Venice Film Festival and the premiere of The King. There were clothes and Kid Cudi cameos and charming red-carpet interviews. It was an example of the sort of stretch, in the gaps between shoots, when TimothĂ©e could indulge his passions for hip-hop and fashion and all these things heâd loved all his life that were suddenly accessible. It was another of the delirious disorientations of the past few yearsâthe way that people who were once subjects of his intense fandom were suddenly a part of his life as friends or acquaintances happy to have him around. He might still embarrass himself at times, helplessly rapping back lyrics to his hip-hop heroes or gushing like a broken dam about new music or clothes or art made by the makers in his life, but they were cool with him so long as he actually kept his cool.
TimothĂ©e also spent the end of last summer promoting The King, alongside his costar Lily-Rose Depp, whom heâd been dating for about a year. He is serious about keeping his former relationship with Depp to himself, but he did share one very sweet, very funny, very sad anecdote that encapsulates the spectrum of great and terrible that accompanies the private life of someone new to mega-fame like TimothĂ©e.
After Venice, he and Lily-Rose took a few days for themselves in Capri, where they were photographed by paparazzi. One image, in particular, circulated in which they were making out on the deck of a boat. TimothĂ©e is contorting himself into the kiss and looks a little awkward. Many people had their laughs. And some even suggested that the photo was staged for publicity. âI went to bed that night thinking that was one of the best days of my life,â TimothĂ©e told me. âI was on this boat all day with someone I really loved, and closing my eyes, I was like, indisputably, âThat was great.â And then waking up to all these pictures, and feeling embarrassed, and looking like a real nob? All pale? And then people are like: This is a P.R. stunt. A P.R. stunt?! Do you think Iâd want to look like that in front of all of you?!â
This was how things worked now. Heâd disappeared into those four straight films and emerged into a new paradigmâone that followed him into the holiday season of last year and a whole new level of exposure with Little Women. Here was this film about sisterhood, female intimacy, and a feminist critique of art and commerce. And yet TimothĂ©e was still the shiniest object in the set for so many fans. âIâm very used to answering questions about TimothĂ©eâs hair from 15-year-old girls,â Saoirse Ronan joked with me. âI imagine thatâs probably what youâre going to ask me about?â
Ronan has the unique perspective of having filmed and then promoted two movies with Chalamet during the past three years, and has as clear an eye as anyone onto this early phase of his career. âHeâs had such incredible opportunities, and he doesnât let the reality of that pass him by,â she said. âHeâs incredibly gracious and grateful in relation to his work and the people he works with. I think heâs become more open as an actor. He knows his instrument more. I think he works even harder now because there are projects that are on his shoulders in a way that they werenât before. And of course heâs been totally catapulted into this whole other realm of attention and notoriety. So heâs also having to balance the incredible fame and attention, which would completely freak me out if it was something I had to go through.â
âIâve realized that as much as these heroes of mine mean to me, and as grateful as I am when they offer me advice, even they acknowledge itâs just a different thing now.â
When Timothée and I were sitting by the Hudson that afternoon back in summer, there were those two young women who approached him for a photo. But there were also two other young women who caught an eyeful of his profile as they strolled by and then surreptitiously positioned themselves out of his sight line but still in mine. They did that thing where one pretends to take a picture of the other while actually shooting back over her shoulder in selfie mode. That charade went on for five minutes or so while Timothée exercised his guts about reuniting with Gerwig and Ronan on Little Women, and though I was nodding along, I was also marveling at the lengths to which those two fans were willing to go to get a picture of him.
I asked Ronan what sheâs noticed about that level of attention, sitting beside him for so much of it. âIâm always kind of shocked by those thingsâwhen any one person can just completely take over peopleâs lives so much,â she said, laughing a little incredulously. âBut Iâm also not surprised. There just arenât many other young male actors out there like him, who are able to hold an audience in the way that he does. His look is so magnetic and beautiful. One of the things that we spoke about a lot when we were doing Little Women, in terms of our characters, but also in terms of myself and him as people, is that we both have this masculinity and femininity equally. And I think that thatâs one of his strengths, is that he can be incredibly sort of feminine and sensitive and sensual, and also heâs a guy that, you know, girls fancy. So he covers so much ground in terms of popularity. But at the end of the day, heâs always gonna have this skill. He can be cute, but that only gets you so far.⊠And so Iâve seen him learn how to separate himself from all that other stuff when heâs on set, when heâs working.â
In Woodstock, TimothĂ©e had described to me with greatest admiration the way that Ronan can act in these films, at this highest level of acclaim and attention, but also remove herself, uncomplicatedly, from all the fuss: âShe is like a superhero when it comes to this sort of thing, going through it so healthyâwith the asterisk being excellent work across the board and four Oscar nominations. I think her, like, DNA of self is really morally right.â She knows herself extremely well, he said, and has the confidence to give up only so much of herself. Whereas he feels he is calibrating constantly how much of his true self to reveal. âSaoirseâs one of my best friends in the worldâat least I think weâre best friends. And sheâs never judged me forâŠthe Coachella of it all.â That is, the part of him that canât resist fanning out backstage with his favorite musicians or occasionally allowing himself to be in the spotlight even as he talks about preserving his privacy.
âHeâs 24, and heâs gonna have a great time, and I would never judge him. Iâve been to Coachella; I just never got photographed at Coachella,â Ronan said, chuckling. âBut yeah, we talk about that sort of stuff all the time. Weâve weirdly gone through this together for the last few years. Weâve both become more accessible. But heâs had one sort of attentionâI do feel like boys get it on a whole other level. I know that ultimately what he wants is to be good at his job. And that will always steer him on the right path. Iâve always let him know, and heâs always let me know, we can talk to each other, and we do. He has good people around him, and Iâm one of them, and Greta as wellâwe all kind of look out for one another.â
TimothĂ©e spent late May and early June asking questions of himself: What can I do? What is my role in all this? He felt conflicted when he sprang to action and conflicted when he stood still. But never did things feel less uncertain, less self-conscious, than when he was marching, anonymously, alongside hundreds or thousands of others in Los Angeles in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. It was an active way to participateâmeaningful action, without being showy, without flexing any of the levers of fame or power. He was going to get hit no matter what he did, so he tried to follow his instincts of what felt humble, responsible, right.
âThis idea,â he said, âthat power is the mass body politic organizedâand how many bodies can you get togetherâthat makes sense to me.â He didnât disappear but, rather, stripped himself of his him-ness and became one body, among many, taking up space and participating in an unequivocal statement. âWith a mask, a hood, a hat, glassesâmy face is deleted,â he explained, âand Iâm literally presenting a physical form, you know?â A single body in space that, like a vote cast in an election, is democracy embodied, but anonymous. The same unit of power as anyone else. âPeople might find it disingenuous, but I found it really grounding,â he said. âIt was Oh shit, I donât feel out of placeâand yet I havenât been in a crowd like this for years.â
He spent much of the summer talking with others about how a person should be in a cultural and political moment such as this one. âAfter a day of protests,â he said, âIâd ask friends if they âfelt good.â If we do, is it a good thing to feel good, or does that mean weâre doing it for the wrong reasons? How much do I want to put on social media? Is it a virtue signal to put it on social media? But all social media is performative, right?â I heard him ask dozens of self-interrogating questions like these. He cares so genuinely about doing the right thing, about doing well by his family, his friends, and his fans. But he didnât want to misuse his privilege or his platform, to overreach so that the gravity of his fame sucked up anything from anyone else whose moment it was to speak. He didnât want to take up room; he wanted to help center other voices. On Instagram, he posted videos each day during the first week of marches in Los Angelesâno directives into camera, just an implicit charge to his followers: Show up. Listen. Be a body.
âI have so many thoughts on so much of it,â he said, âbut I donât see the benefit of putting it down for consumption until Iâve really worked out exactly how I feel about it all. Who benefits from my half-baked ideas?â Who cannot relate to this in 2020? Who would want any of their dinnertime conversations with family and friends these past months chiseled into the stone of the internet? âI care so much about this stuff. But I would never want my caring to be misconstrued. I donât want my caring to be about me in any way.â
God, this stuff twisted him up. He knows how much has gone his way. But from the summit of good fortune and power, is it better to speak constantlyâor to shut up, put on the glasses, pull down the hood, and live and act according to oneâs convictions as one individual among many individuals? To march. To vote. To speak through action rather than words. Staying in motion, showing up, being a bodyâitâs a good place to start while he works out the rest of how heâs meant to live a life true to his values with everyone watching.
Heâs seeking out the right path, the right peopleâwith help from his âintergenerational peersâ and Dylan and anyone else he can find. He wants the benefit of their knowledge and experience, and heâs okay if itâs slow going to accrue it. Heâs open to playing the role of the novice still. But there have also been things in his life these past of couple years that have made him realize, as he puts it, âadults are just kids a little bit older.â When he returned to New York from Los Angeles this summer, it wasnât to his childhood apartment or to a borrowed living space of an acquaintance. It was to his very own apartment, his first, in a little wedge of Manhattan he loved for being nowhere, but on the edge of several somewheres. He relished the mundanity of setting up his own place. To hear him talk about a first trip to CB2 was like hearing another person talk about their first trip to a movie set. âBut I think if people saw what my apartment looked like, theyâd be like, âOh! This kid has no fucking clue what heâs doing.â â He is so young and he is so old. It is his gift. He is so patient when he can suppress being so restless. So careful with the long arc of a career when he can resist obsessing over the instant. He is so confident when he centers on the work and so searching when he gets sucked down into questions about the rest of his life. Will he always be this way? This pliable and open? This self-reflective and intentional? He trusted so little of his new life, but he trusted his talent. That was the key. He knew he was as good as anyone at playing other people, even if he was still figuring out how to play himself.
We spent a good amount of time in Woodstock and in New York City and on the phone talking about where his career might take him from here. With great humility, he acknowledges his skill. But he has been thinking a lot about the difference between preternatural talent and masteryâthe work thatâs required to ascend from that floor of young greatness to the ceiling of realized potential. That said, heâs wise enough to know that his career could pivot in an entirely different directionâthat the world could change or the opportunities could dry up or âeventually thereâs gonna be an Oscar Isaac in his 30s whoâs gonna bust out of Juilliard whoâs gonna be the next great actor and make me feel like a piece of shit. But right nowâŠâ
He told me, âIf I get hit by a truck next week, Iâm looking at 20 to 23, I donât know if you can top that.â To show up with Call Me by Your Nameâhe knows that that film was a unicorn, the sort an actor works his whole life to find. And the immediate Oscar nomination had freed him up to not spend the rest of his career chasing a certain kind of role that might lead to a certain kind of validation. âIâm not gonna be bashing my head against a wall trying to prove that Iâm an actor,â he said. âThe train can run over my leg and leave a track forever, and yet the point of entry for meâŠ,â he said, trailing. âThatâs a good feeling.â
He looks at all these careersâall the careers you might expect: DiCaprio, Bale, Phoenix, Depp. And he does his best to separate the strands of each of their careers that might still apply to his. But all of the rules for acting success that those performers played by, for how to be in the public eye, for career arcs and longevityâthose rules are irrelevant now. Hollywood is different, the media is different, fans are different, movies are different, the world is different. âIâve realized that as much as these heroes of mine mean to me, and as grateful as I am when they offer me advice, even they acknowledge itâs just a different thing now.â
And so itâs occurring to him that the next few years will be TimothĂ©e finding the path thatâs right for him. Lately, heâs thought about this next phase as shining a flashlight into the dark. There are potential projects that excite him considerably, some of which heâs had a greater hand in engineering. There is, of course, the Dylan movie. But thereâs the question of how to spend the rest of the year, when most Hollywood productions are still paused. âThe rest of the year,â he says, âIâm just thinking about Trump, man.â But after thatâŠmaybe Europe for a while? The Woodstock experiment did what heâd hoped it wouldâa little space, somewhere else. He would love to just breathe some different air again.
He was at another pivot point, as he had been when he and I were first together for Chapter 1. In the winter of 2018, the work had been validated, the public profile had developed suddenly. But the temptations, the confusion, the moneyâthose were all lagging indicators. By mid-2020, all had caught up. And the money, in particular, was on his mind one afternoon in New York. We were talking about how a person might stay true to oneâs roots with that sort of thing when the reality, for him at least, had changed with Dune. I told him that one of the things that seemed to differentiate him from young stars of the past, and perhaps was a feature of his generation, was the way that material possessions didnât consume him. He didnât buy much stuff. He didnât own a car or a house. He liked borrowing clothes, but not necessarily keeping them. He agreed with the characterization, but then got immediately twisted up about a potential future hypocrisy: âBut Dan, what if I do grow to like fancy shit?!â
Boomeranging back home after the surreal adventures out in the worldâthat was a good and grounding thing for him. Over the weeks we were talking, he spent time with his folks, delivered some COVID groceries to his grandma, and was in touch with his sister daily. And in New York, he and I kept running into ghosts. One afternoon, when we crossed the West Side Highway at Houston Street, he gestured at the athletic complex at Pier 40, where he played soccer growing up. He scampered over to a vending machine there to grab a bottle of water. When he pulled open his wallet to pay, he had only twenties. âBad metaphor! Bad metaphor!â he screamed, jumping away from the vending machine, as though it were one of the great threats to his selfhood. This was the sort of innocuous moment that will hum with outsize resonance for me when I think about Chapter 2 from the future. All the things that one would expect to happen had happened in the first two and a half years since the arrival of a comet, and yet he was suspicious of so much of it.
Here is another way I will remember him from this moment: sitting on that porch in Woodstockâbreeze and birds in the trees, sunlight in the leavesâlooking for a higher power. Or at least expressing openness, as a nonreligious person, to the idea of some central organizing force in the universeâbecause, given everything lately, there has to be or weâre fucked, right? Some of these searching things he said to me could be mistaken as a person spinning out a little. But that wasnât it at all. There was such calm. There was such contentment with the grace that had been afforded his life and career thus far, and where each might take him next. He was questing, yesâbut he was firmly at the controls. The flashlight in the dark. Someone moving forward with great confidence into the unknown, with eyes wide, mouth shut, and ears listening more than they ever had before. There were no models for how a person like him should be anymore. There were no longer any adults who werenât just kids a little bit older. There were no blueprints for how to shape a careerâso much had changed. There was only a head and a heart, his, and a feeling for the moment. âMaybe Iâll never do a great work of art again, but I just feel like Iâm confident in the way Iâm trying to approach things now, how Iâm setting up the angles,â he said on that porch in Woodstock. âWhen you think about Dylan. When you think about what Joel Coen said about the rapidness of the art, Iâm just like: Trust the beat of your own drum. Give this its best shot. Give your artistry its best shot.â
Daniel Riley is a GQ correspondent and the author of âBarcelona Days,â which was published this past summer.
A version of this story originally appears in the November 2020 issue with the title âWild Heart.â
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Renell Medrano
Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu
Tailoring by Ksenia Golub
Produced by Wei-Li Wang at Hudson Hill Production
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