The Thin of It

Eleven years ago in the New Yorker, Rachel Syme declared there had been a McConaissance. After a decade in the darkness Matthew McConaughey had been reborn with reinvigorated craftsmanship and an undeniable, enchanting ‘oddball intensity’. It’s difficult to find a phrase more apt than that ‘oddball intensity’ to apply to Timothée Chalamet’s behaviour in recent weeks. He might not have disappeared for a decade, over the past year or so he has led two films to gross a combined $1.3bn at the box office, yet there was a strange dip in the young actor’s reputation in that time. Chalamet’s lull was blink-and-you-miss-it. Given the steady and continuous success of his films it’s tempting to forget it ever happened. But for a while there was a definite, if intangible, sense that the young actor was no longer quite in vogue – that he had lost what a pundit might call his ‘cultural cachet’. But the revival did not take long. We are now witnessing the Chalamaissance.

Despite commercial success, Wonka was swept up into the Tiktok-take-cycle as Gen-Z and younger Millenials mostly seemed to feel Chalamet’s earnest and actorly coolness had been soiled by embarrassing quirkiness and auto-tuned vocals. That is to say, Chalamet’s portrayal of a Roald Dahl character in a musical for children was held up against his prior work in a Louisa May Alcott adaptation, a film about addiction, and several Luca Guadagnino films. Former fans took to the internet exasperated, explaining how they’d walked out of theatres on account of the sheer silliness of this children’s film. How might anyone have guessed it wouldn’t be for them? Others suggested that becoming Wonka showed Chalamet to be a sell-out. ‘More a product of practical commerce than pure imagination’ one review claimed. Pilling onto this crowd were the hordes of cinephiles and ‘Dylanologists’ terrified that the actor was on a rampage, ready to desecrate not only beloved literary characters but also semi-divine cult heroes. Footage from A Complete Unknown first emerged in July and Chalamet was found guilty before proven innocent in the court of public opinion. A perfect storm tricked much of the internet into believing that this fraud was not the fine actor he had extensively proven himself to be, but rather a glorified theatre-kid operating far beyond his station and plaguing popular culture with his hellish Midas touch.

Alas, fickle fans blow in the wind and following a handful of astute, if absurd, media appearances coupled by strong critical reception to A Complete Unknown, Hollywood’s poster boy is back. By turning up to his own lookalike contest in New York two months ago he helped trigger a worldwide trend of copycats. Appearing on the cult podcasts of Theo Vonn, Brittany Broski, and Nardwuar, he zealously proved himself not to be the kind of lizard-person many of his contemporaries come across as. And in an offering to mainstream legacy media, he joined the panel on College Gameday in the US to give a slew of predictions that would’ve won any fan good money at the bookies. In a turnout for the ages: young Hollywood actor of stratospheric fame and success seems like the kind of bloke you might want to go to the pub with. Or whatever the American equivalent of that is. That’s not to say Chalamet’s media appearances have painted him as a normal guy whose persona appeals to the everyman. On the contrary, the press run has embraced what a strange guy he actually is – or seems to be – in a way that has felt refreshingly candid for the industry. In any case, the last month has seen a total rehabilitation of the man’s image – a successful Chalamaissance.

All of this might seem, quite understandably, like inane discourse over celebrity status that any civilised individual would be best placed ignoring entirely. Maybe so. But it might, on the other hand, point to a much bigger shift towards the establishment of an important cultural icon in decades to come. The volatile nature of the Timothée Chalamet take-cycle over the last year or so is indicative of how the general public relate to most celebrities in the modern age. It’s difficult to find any actors (musicians, or writers) whose cultural status is not intimately tied to the success of their most recent project or personal faux pas. But Chalamet seems plausible as a rare figure who could come to defy that phenomenon. Already the range and steady success of his projects is basically unparalleled. At the age of twenty-eight he has achieved the following. He is the lead in a popular IP franchise which grossed well over a billion dollars across its first two instalments. He has found critical and commercial success in portraying iconic literary characters across genres, with dramas, musicals, and sci-fi epics. He has worked with some of the most important writer/directors we have in Greta Gerwig, Luca Guadagnino, Christopher Nolan, and Wes Anderson, to name a few. He’s been nominated for five SAG Awards, four Golden Globes, and an Academy Award. And he is now probably the frontrunner to win the Best Actor Oscar for portraying one of the most important cultural figures in the last century of American history.

While this may just feel obvious and unnecessarily gushing, it points towards a trajectory of success beyond any actor ever. That’s not to say incessant comparisons haven’t been drawn to chart the future of this man’s career. Chalamet himself has suggested some desire to emulate the success and career of Leonardo DiCaprio. That comparison makes sense insofar as Chalamet exists as a young heartthrob actor pursuing interesting work with great collaborators. But in terms of future status Chalamet might stack-up much closer too, or even beyond, the likes of Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks – true blue American entertainers and artists whose popularity is near universal and whose status is untouchable. Streep won her first Oscar at 30, Hanks at 37. I’m being over-earnest about the Chalamaissance and internet popularity – those things really don’t matter and are not culturally important. Nor do the awards which he might or might not be lavished with, the Academy is known for nothing if not being generally out-of-touch. But, if Chalamet does win the Oscar on March 10^th, it may well mark the symbolic inauguration of the greatest ever movie star. The importance of that should not be underestimated.

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