In the past, a Hollywood star was someone who got $ 20 million per reel, and with each new movie, lured the masses to the screen. Those days are over; Today, it is mostly only comic heroes that attract the general public. Accordingly, the concept Film Star has to be redefined - nobody does that more upbeat than Timothée Chalamet.
His new movie "Beautiful Boy", which starts on Thursday in Germany, may have gross recorded manageable sums. But if you look only at the start of the weekend, the drug drama is one of the ten most successful films in 2018.
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Timothée Chalamet: Type cool son-in-lawThat so many were curious about the movie is mainly due to the 23-year-old Chalamet. In 2017 he fell in love with the nostalgic summer holiday mood love movie "Call Me By Your Name" as a 17-year-old Elio in the older Oliver and received an Oscar nomination (while he went out in 2019 to the disappointment of some empty). Since then he has caused a stir like no other actor since Benedict Cumberbatch at the height of the "Sherlock" -Hypes.
The "Chalamania" was sparked by promotional appearances for "Call Me By Your Name", but the hype has long been a life of its own. Twitter memes and Instagram stories are piling up, his face is being copied into classic artworks on a fan account, fashion magazines are tearing up shoots with Chalamet.
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And then, of course, there is the growing fan base, largely made up of young women, who need additional security staff at public gigs such as the "Beautiful Boy" premiere last September in Toronto.
"It would be an exaggeration to say that I'm overwhelmed by what's going on in my life since Call Me By Your Name," says Chalamet at the Los Angeles interview appointment. "Just because I grew up in the outskirts of the show business in Manhattan and over and over again, what it means to be famous and successful."
Sensitive, dreamy, thoughtful, educated
Even as a teenager, Chalamet played for a season in the series "Homeland" and was seen in "Interstellar" as the son of Matthew McConaughey. New is the edge of attention anyway: "I am more amazed myself, how much I enjoy the situation." He shouts quickly, "First of all I'm grateful, Grateful that I was already able to play on Broadway, grateful that as a big fan of 'The Office' I was allowed to have Steve Carell as a movie dad, who can do such things at my age already say of themselves? "
This amazingly embarrassing mix of well-bred modesty and self-confidence is exactly the image that Chalamet's fans have fallen into so many. Sensitive and dreamy, thoughtful and educated, cool, but good enough to go through as a piano playing son-in-law.
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Chalamet - the son of a stage actress and a French Unicef employee, with a youth from summer holidays in Europe, visiting the legendary La Guardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Art - applies this description as well as to his role as Elio in "Call Me By Your Name".
In Greta Gerwig's "Lady Bird" he played a tongue in cheek ironic version of the same type, in "Beautiful Boy" he now shows the dark side: the son of well-off home, who almost perishes at his Crystal Meth addiction. Last doubts about Chalamet's acting talent are moreover cleared up in this touching story.
The fact that this thin little guy with the dense curly hair is now - as recently by the US website Vulture - celebrated as a "perfect movie star for our time", of course, not only because of his skills, but especially because he is different. Where blockbuster producers primarily rely on the "captain of the football team" type, Chalamet in his boyish tenderness, far from any potential for aggression, is the perfect counter model.
Fashionable courage
A position that he is well aware of himself. "I'd like to know if the roles I'm playing bring some change," he told pop star Harry Styles for iD magazine. "Masculinity is not defined by a specific pants size, muscle shirts, sex preferences or substance abuse, it's exciting, a beautiful new world, and our generation is happy to do things in a new way."
He casually leads by example. He has publicly regretted working with Woody Allen (the movie "A Rainy Day in New York", which has been shot since autumn 2017, is currently on hold) and donated his fee to charities such as Time's Up. For the Golden Globe Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he appeared not only in the company of his mother instead of his alleged girlfriend Lily-Rose Depp. He wore a glittering blend of harness and breeches by Louis Vuitton - fashionably at least as bold as the floral suit of Alexander McQueen he wore for the London premiere of "Beautiful Boy."
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Timothée Chalamet at the Golden Globes 2019
That he plays in all the games with androgyny and queerness nevertheless far less eccentric-avant-garde and above all heteronormativer than his colleague Ezra Miller ("Fantastic beasts"), the public enthusiasm is beneficial.
Will Chalamet be able to turn the hype around his person into a lasting career? At Comicverfilmungen he has - unlike a few years ago Cumberbatch - apparently no interest. "It does not matter to me if my films bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, I'm interested in exciting roles - and most of all, working with the best filmmakers in the world, so if somebody plays in one of those giant productions, then somebody has to especially sitting on the director's chair, "said Chalamet.
In the video: The review of "Beautiful Boy"
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He is currently standing in front of the camera of Wes Anderson with Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton. But then filming begins for the highly anticipated remake of the science fiction classic "Dune" by Denis Villeneuve. A movie with blockbuster potential.