Timothee Chalamet Explains Why Making 'Beautiful Boy' Was So Important
Timothee Chalamet is looking dapper in W Magazine‘s Best Performances portfolio, which is part of the brand’s Volume 1, 2019 issue, which is out now.
Here’s what the 23-year-old Call Me By Your Name star had to say…
On Beautiful Boy: “Beautiful Boy [which is about a father and his son, who is addicted to drugs] was a script they’d been trying to get made for 10 years. Every guy actor my age had gone up for it. I’ve been lucky, but a lot of the bigger Hollywood movies like Spider-Man, things like that, I didn’t get. So, for Beautiful Boy, I did a lot of research and read about drugs, and I brought the books to my first meeting with the director. I could see in his eyes that he was thinking, This kid is nuts. But I felt this movie—the subject of drug addiction—was so important. I wanted to make an anti-glorification-of-drugs movie. And I think we did.”
On meeting Nic Sheff, who he plays in the film: “Yes. I met him a week before we started shooting. And there was nothing about Nic that fit my stereotype of an addict. That was the learning grace of this movie: Nic is alive and well, but the reality is, it’s a day at a time. You never really beat it.”
On losing weight for the role: “My mom was worried! I lost 18 pounds. First, I’m in a movie where I was having sex with a peach, and then it was like, ‘I got another movie!’ She said, ‘Great!’ And then I had to tell her what it was about.”
For more from Timothee, visit WMagazine.com.