Timothee Chalamet Opens Up to Frank Ocean About Artistic Integrity & the Digital Age

Timothee Chalamet graces the cover of VMAN 39, out on newsstands on February 22.

Frank Ocean interviewed Timothee for the cover story.

Here’s what the 22-year-old Call Me Be Your Name star had to say:

On being called by his Call Me By Your Name character’s name: “That’s been happening. Though riding the 2 train or taking the M12 bus around the city, that hasn’t changed; I guess people don’t really give a f–k in New York. I actually get more people stopping me for Lady Bird, and going, ‘Is that the douchebag from Lady Bird?’ So that’s awesome.”

On nostalgia for the past: “I’m a total ‘nostalgist’ and Call Me By Your Name‘s director, Luca [Guadagnino], grew up in that time period. In fact, the book is set in ’88 and he changed it to ’83 because he said that was the year in your life you can hear music from. In the movie, there’s Talking Heads, The Psychedelic Furs, or just the Bach or Beethoven–those are all songs from Luca‘s youth, what it was like for him in Italy in the ’80s. Also, in 1988, the AIDS crisis had already hit and that was part of the reasoning for making [the film] a little bit earlier too, so it wasn’t as intense, and could be a little more utopic. What a tragedy for movies now that if you want to be contemporary, phones have to be involved, with texting and FaceTime. I don’t know if [the characters in] Call Me By Your Name would ever have that relationship if there was passive-aggressive commenting and ‘likes.’ They actually had to talk, figure each other out, and struggle with their emotions.”

On his passion for acting: “I had this feeling I couldn’t not act and yet to get there I really needed teachers, and one teacher in particular, to make me comfortable with failing. To be bad and get over it–that opened the floodgates.”

For more from Timothee and Frank, head to VMan.com.