Ahead of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Timothée Chalamet says working on Bones and All came as a breath of fresh air. Set in the 1980s, the film tells the story of Lee (Chalamet) and Maren (Taylor Russell), two cannibalistic drifters who embark on a road trip across Ronald Reagan’s America. It marks Chalamet’s second time working with director Luca Guadagnino, who helmed 2017’s Call Me By Your Name. Bones and All also stars Chloë Sevigny, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Mark Rylance.
Call Me By Your Name was a monumental success for both Chalamet and Guadagnino. Each received widespread acclaim for their work on the film, and Chalamet went on to become the youngest Best Actor nominee at the Academy Awards since 1939. At the end of 2019, Call Me By Your Name was included in many Best of the Decade lists, and Chalamet has mentioned that he had since been “dying” to work with Guadagnino again. Their long-awaited reunion came after Guadagnino read the script for Bones and All and “immediately” saw Chalamet in the role of Lee.
At the film’s Venice press conference, Chalamet slammed today’s social media culture and called Bones and All a “relief” for its 80s storyline. For Chalamet, playing a character who is “wrestling with an internal dilemma” without the ability to get online presented a welcome challenge and highlighted some pitfalls of staying hyper-connected via the internet. Read what Chalamet had to say ahead of the film’s premiere below:
“To be young now, and to be young whenever—I can only speak for my generation—is to be intensely judged. I can’t imagine what it is to grow up with the onslaught of social media, and it was a relief to play characters who are wrestling with an internal dilemma absent of the ability to go on Reddit, or Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok and figure out where they fit in. I’m not casting judgment; you can find your tribe there. But I think it’s hard to be alive now. I think societal collapse is in the air. That’s why hopefully this movie will matter.”
Chalamet also explained that he was eager to sign on to the film for its “grounded” storyline in the vein of Call Me By Your Name. He recalled being excited to reunite with the director who launched his career to tell a story that’s more in line with their first collaboration than the major blockbusters Chalamet has done since. That small-scale, character-driven nature is a far cry from some of Chalamet’s other recent projects – the actor is currently filming the sequel to last year’s gigantic sci-fi epic Dune. He also had a significant part in Don’t Look Up, the star-studded Netflix satire that couldn’t be further from his work with Guadagnino.
Fans who came to know Chalamet after Call Me By Your Name have been anticipating Bones and All since whispers of another collaboration with Guadagnino first began, and they’ll be happy to know that the first batch of reviews is looking promising. Even after Chalamet’s comments about returning to his roots, the cannibalism element promises a freaky storyline that differs from the minimalist slow burn of Call Me By Your Name.
Source: Variety