Timothée Chalamet Strips to Tank Top, Brings Kylie Jenner to Berlin – Variety
By
Ramin Setoodeh
Co-Editor-in-Chief
It is a very cold February night in Berlin. As the snow falls and attendees of the Berlin Film Festival bundle up, Timothée Chalamet, walking the red carpet for a special screening of “A Complete Unknown,” looks utterly unbothered. Chalamet is taking yet another big fashion swing by wearing a cotton candy pink hoodie designed by Chrome Hearts along with pink sweatpants and pink shoes — as if he’s channeling a Care Bear, or the rose-colored Pac-Man ghost. All his fans (so, so many girls — but perhaps just as many boys) scream and tremble as he takes selfies with him.
And then, when he’s signed practically every autograph, Chalamet, 29, reminds the crowd that he’s an A-list movie star. He strips off the hoodie and stands in the freezing cold in a matching pink tank top. Yes, this is a leading-man-from-the-’90s move, and the crowd goes even wilder. The entire scene is electric, and it caps off one of the most gonzo best actor campaigns in Oscar history.
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We can be thankful for that. This awards season has taken what’s supposed to be a celebratory time and made it sour — between an ugly social media scandal involving the star of “Emilia Perez,” and mudslinging about the use of artificial intelligence in “The Brutalist” and the lack of intimacy coordinators on “Anora.” Chalamet, on the other hand, seems to be running an Oscar campaign set in a totally different universe. (While most of his peers have spent the voting period gladhanding Academy members in Los Angeles, he’s here in snowy Germany, meeting his fans.) Promoting his role as Bob Dylan, he’s infused his promotional tour with the askew optimism of one of his recent studio roles as Willy Wonka.
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And as his fellow nominees have trudged through the Q&As, Chalamet has largely eschewed the traditional banalities of awards season. He kicked off his press tour for “A Complete Unknown” in a puffy jacket, handicapping football on ESPN’s “College GameDay” and made a surprise appearance in front of the University of Minnesota marching band. He hosted “SNL” and performed double duty as the musical guest, crooning three lesser-known Dylan songs with pitch-perfect precision. He’s taking Anderson Cooper for a tour of the New York in which he grew up this weekend on “60 Minutes.” And rather than play the tortured and media-shy young actor, he happily brought his publicity-magnet girlfriend Kylie Jenner as his date to the Golden Globes and the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
All of which is to say: Strangely, he seems to actually be having fun. In Berlin, Chalamet shut down a street earlier in the day, attending a festival press conference. He laughed as one fan asked him to sign a cardboard of a peach (a wink to his most infamous, star-making role in “Call Me by Your Name”) and patiently scribbled his name on an assortment of “Dune” signage. The entire procession was eerily chill. No screaming. No crying. No hysteria. Just hundreds of Germans standing in the snow, waiting patiently and quietly for an autograph from a Hollywood star who is his generation’s Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio — and yet, fittingly for an age in which stars feel more accessible than ever, he can still give off the friendly vibe of your favorite neighborhood barista.
As Chalamet walked into the screening tonight, he put his pink hoodie back on, wearing it like a cape, his lanky legs only accentuating his bad posture. (As one of his fans said on X, “Bad posture is hot” — at least on him.) Chalamet came into the theater, picked up a sharpie and signed his name on a poster in the lobby, as is tradition for actors with movies playing in Berlin. He referenced a Dylan song, scribbling: “Wanna be ‘Blind Boy Grunt’ LOVE FROM NYC” And then he took his seat and put his hand on the knee of his guest — as a camera in the theater panned to his girlfriend, who (surprise!) had traveled to Berlin with him.A post shared by Variety (@variety)
Will any of this work when it comes to successfully winning an Oscar? Who knows. But Chalamet seems to living in the moment and appreciating the moment that he’s in. He’s reminded us of something that we should remember during (what should be) this time for celebration. How does it feel, how does it feel? Win or lose, it should feel pretty damn good.
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