Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture emailGet the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter
Christopher Nolan isn’t willing to give his actors free rein — even if that actor happens to be Timothée Chalamet.
The Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme star — who appeared in the British director’s critically acclaimed 2014 sci-fi adventure Interstellar as the younger version of Casey Affleck’s Tom — spoke with Nolan ahead of a recent Imax 70mm screening of the film at the AMC Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles.
During their conversation, which was shared on YouTube, Chalamet asked the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer filmmaker, 55, whether he gives certain actors “a little more bandwidth.”
“No, I don’t indulge people like you doing crazy s***,” Nolan replied. Citing a specific example, he recalled the time Chalamet, now 30, was filming the scene in which his character records messages from home for his father in space.
“There was a particular thing where you were hitting a dark tone,” the Inception director remembered. “It felt too much for me. I didn’t particularly like it.
open image in gallery
Timothée Chalamet (right) starred in Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed sci-fi film ‘Interstellar’ (Getty)
open image in gallery
Matthew McConaughey led ‘Interstellar’ as Cooper, a NASA pilot sent to explore other planets to see if they’d be inhabitable for humankind (AP)
“I told you about it, and you went ahead and did whatever the f*** you wanted and carried on,” he added. “But I was like, ‘He knows what he wants to do and has an idea.’”
Interjecting with laughter, Chalamet admitted: “I don’t even remember that! That’s crazy. I didn’t even think you knew my name, man. This is unbelievable.”
“I might not have known your name,” Nolan quipped, “but I knew what you were doing. It wasn’t about being stubborn. You had planned what you wanted to do. You planned your choices and you didn’t want to abandon that on a casual whim for me. You wanted to test that and challenge that and see if I kept coming back, which I didn’t. I’ll find a logic to that in the edit suite.”
open image in gallery
‘Interstellar’ marked one of Chalamet’s first major roles in a feature film before his breakout in ‘Call Me by Your Name’ (Getty Images)
He continued: “Actually, to be honest, the edge you were giving is what Casey was then putting into the late performance. I couldn’t necessarily see that at the time because we hadn’t done any of that stuff yet. And as a director, you are looking for an actor to interpret the script in their own way and bring their point of view on it. And you have a point of view.”
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day
New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.
Try for free
ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Nolan clarified that it is “not really about letting people off the leash” but “it’s about trying to give them what they need as a director.”
Interstellar, which follows former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) as he’s sent to explore the galaxy in search of a planet suitable for human life, earned a handful of Oscar nominations, including Best Visual Effects and Best Production Design. It also starred Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Matt Damon, and marked one of Chalamet’s first roles in a major feature film, before his breakout performance in Call Me by Your Name (2017).