Timothée Chalamet talks to Frank Ocean about art, music, fashion and acting in Call Me By Your Name

We read interviews of Oscar nominated actors and platinum-selling musicians all the time. But what about a first-time Oscar nominated actor being interviewed by one of the most innovative and creative musical minds of our times? That is exactly what happened when Timothée Chalamet was interviewed by Frank Ocean for VMan Magazine. While Timothée Chalamet is the youngest actor to be nominated for an Oscar in 80 years for Call Me By Your Name, Frank Ocean has molded R&B and soul music into his own easily recognisable signature style. And when these two artists had a conversation about their hometowns, professions, art, and music, the result was extremely insightful and rewarding. The two start off the conversation casually with Frank Ocean asking the actor if people really call him Timothée, to which he replies, “The real pronunciation is Timo-tay, but I can’t ask people to call me that; it just seems really pretentious.” Chalamet, who last year starred in both Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name, is asked if people have started to call him Elio (his character from Call Me By Your Name), but, according to Chalamet, people recognise him more as the “douchebag from Lady Bird”. Ocean also brings up the video of Chalamet rapping about statistics, which the actor calls “embarrassing.”

The two stars discuss their favorite places to eat in New York and Los Angeles, and about their mutual love for fashion (they both love designers Raf Simons, Haider Ackermann, Hedi Slimane), and how much they admire Joaquin Phoenix. Chalamet quotes lyrics from Ocean’s song ‘Seigfried’ to which the singer says, “don’t do that.” [caption id=“attachment_4339789” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Frank Ocean and Timothée Chalamet/Image from Twitter.[/caption] The two then discuss the process of Chalamet’s acting. The actor talks about how he’s coached on the sets for everything he is doing. He talks about his upcoming movie Beautiful Boy in which he is playing a methamphetamine addict. Chalamet says that he had a consultant for drugs on the sets of Beautiful Boy so he could do justice to the role of a drug addict. The two also discuss the much conflicting question an actor faces: should he stick to indie flicks that have depth, or should he try his hand at big budgeted, angry, aggressive movies? To this Chalamet says, “Christopher Nolan is tied with Paul Thomas Anderson [as] my favorite director. If one of those auteurs has a $200 million film and wants me to be a part of it, f**k yeah.” Finally, the two talk about the soundtrack of Call Me By Your Name. Ocean calls the soundtrack “super good”, and Chalamet tells the enigmatic singer to do a score for a movie. “Yeah, one of these days,” Ocean replies. You can read the interview in whole here.