{"id":75332,"date":"2025-12-23T01:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T04:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/only-timothee-chalamet-could-get-away-with-this\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T01:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T04:27:13","slug":"only-timothee-chalamet-could-get-away-with-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/only-timothee-chalamet-could-get-away-with-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet Could Get Away With This"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

At a party recently, a friend posed a question I\u2019d never heard before. \u201cHave you been blimp-fluenced yet?\u201d she asked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlimp-fluenced?\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet blimp,\u201d she clarified.<\/p>\n

Ah, yes, of course I knew the Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet blimp. It\u2019s the streak of orange that\u2019s been hovering over Los Angeles for weeks with the title of Chalamet\u2019s new film, Marty Supreme<\/em>, emblazoned across its side. I\u2019d spotted it once, appearing like a thought bubble above the Hollywood<\/span> sign. Chalamet\u2014or, at least, the braggadocious version of himself in a video he posted on Instagram last month\u2014had pitched the airship as part of his master plan to make the movie \u201cone of the most important things that happens on planet Earth this year.\u201d In an 18-minute staged Zoom session<\/a> with the film\u2019s marketing team, he proposed drenching landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty in orange paint. And not just any orange: \u201cHard-core orange, corroded orange, falling-apart orange, rusted orange,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The whole scheme is stupidly brilliant and brilliantly stupid, emblematic of just how unusual Marty Supreme<\/em>\u2019s rollout\u2014and Chalamet\u2019s press-tour persona\u2014has been. The actor began cultivating his eccentric approach to marketing this time last year, while promoting the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown<\/em><\/a>. Back then, he defied expectations of a movie star headlining an Oscar-courting drama: He popped up at his own look-alike contest, rode a Lime bike onto a red carpet, and used his acceptance speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards to emphasize his ambition to become \u201cone of the greats.\u201d Now he\u2019s gone beyond generating headlines for his idiosyncrasy. Chalamet\u2019s M.O. thus far has been to make everything about Marty Supreme<\/em>, and Marty Supreme <\/em>only: He\u2019s been dressing almost exclusively in orange\u2014excuse me, \u201chard-core orange\u201d\u2014or in the limited supply of Marty Supreme <\/em>merchandise<\/a>. He appears at events flanked by an army of Ping-Pong-ball-headed foot soldiers<\/a>; the film is about a flashy Ping-Pong player, so the surreal (and slightly terrifying) costume tracks. The Statue of Liberty has not been doused in orange, but it might as well be.<\/p>\n

Read: The celebrity look-alike contest boom<\/a><\/p>\n

What Chalamet has been doing feels defiantly risky. Amid a fresh round of Oscar buzz for his performance in Marty Supreme<\/em>, Chalamet is actively rejecting the contender playbook. Instead, he\u2019s cementing himself as a one-man marketing machine, unabashed about his attention-seeking and box-office dreams. Forget the glitzy<\/a> galas<\/a> considered essential stops for awards hopefuls; even when he appears on late-night TV, shows up on the cover of Vogue<\/em>, or participates in a Q&A<\/a> sponsored by Vanity Fair<\/em>, Chalamet turns his Marty Supreme <\/em>talk into a vehicle for self-aggrandizement. That discussion often includes emphasizing how badly he wants to be respected for his body of work\u2014an admission that\u2019s usually considered gauche. Somehow, though, Chalamet has skirted major repercussions for his cockiness. That\u2019s in part because he\u2019s a young man embodying the familiar archetype of the egotistical striver, and in part because he has the talent to back his claims; he\u2019s received two Oscar nominations before turning 30. But if anything, his off-screen tactics lately prove that he\u2019s the rare current A-lister who can manage a tricky balancing act: seeming spontaneous while being extremely, obviously calculated. He\u2019s effortful, even if what he\u2019s doing to cultivate his public image appears effortless.<\/p>\n

It helps that Chalamet\u2019s most obnoxious endeavors could be seen as extensions of Marty Mauser, his Marty Supreme <\/em>character. Marty is a gifted-yet-arrogant man so convinced of his own eminence, he spirals into a vortex of self-destruction. The actor\u2019s promotional work might as well be called \u201cthe Marty Mauser method\u201d: He jangles people\u2019s nerves by making boastful declarations\u2014\u201cIt\u2019s been like seven, eight years that I\u2019ve been handing in really, really committed top-of-the-line performances,\u201d he said recently<\/a>\u2014that sometimes attract backlash<\/a>. But much like Marty, Chalamet seems untroubled by naysayers. The more brash he becomes, the more Chalamet blurs the line between himself and his character. As Chalamet told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em><\/a>, Marty \u201cis who I was before I had a career.\u201d Squint, and the actor\u2019s most off-putting moves could be attributed to his commitment to the grind, which could then encourage audiences to go see the results in action.<\/p>\n

Chalamet talks openly about how he wants to lean into provocation despite the danger of doing so. \u201cAt worst, you\u2019ve rubbed people the wrong way,\u201d he told Vogue<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAnd at best, someone will get pulled in and go, \u2018Hey, this guy really thinks this thing\u2019s worthy.\u2019\u201d His stunts, carefully curated though they may be, seem to genuinely align with his interests. He\u2019s terminally online<\/a>, so he knew how to make a parody of a Zoom meeting meme-able. He loves hip-hop, so he danced<\/a> to Soulja Boy\u2019s \u201cCrank That\u201d onstage. None of this came across like they\u2019d been pitched by a team of publicists; rather, they seemed like the product of someone giddily checking items off a personal bucket list.<\/p>\n

Read: Bob Dylan broke rules. A Complete Unknown<\/em> follows them.<\/a><\/p>\n

Conventional wisdom dictates that a performer hoping to be taken seriously by his peers and the public has to take himself seriously; think sober post-screening talkbacks, not silly bits with blimps. Manufactured setups can backfire easily, as Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s unsettling appearance<\/a> on the Late Show With David Letterman <\/em>did in 2009. But many of Chalamet\u2019s efforts bring to mind those of pop stars. Unlike actors drawing a line between their private life and their characters, singers often invite intense scrutiny of both their work and themselves\u2014scrutiny they can then use to their advantage. Chalamet\u2019s matching orange movie-premiere outfits<\/a> with his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, for example, echo Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake\u2019s denim wardrobe<\/a> in the early 2000s; wearing eye-searing hues together produces tabloid fodder, while further anchoring Chalamet in the cultural zeitgeist. His choice to so closely blend his personality with his career resembles a lyricist writing diaristic songs<\/a>, encouraging a sense of kinship between him and his audience. The outcome is a deliberate impression of intimacy, mixed with an appealing vulnerability. That makes Chalamet the movie star for this social-media-obsessed, parasocial-relationship-building moment: He understands that he can generate viral content with his personality alone, keeping him in not just the so-called awards conversation, but the cultural one at large.<\/p>\n

Even genuine passion for a film on the awards track can descend into repetitive sound bites<\/a> and rote red-carpet appearances. But Chalamet seems to be having the time of his life, even when he\u2019s strapped to the top of the Las Vegas Sphere and cawing<\/a> at nothing but a drone zooming away from his face. In a culture full of endless distraction, he\u2019s doing all he can to make himself an easy-to-follow focal point, like an orange blimp on the horizon. His enthusiasm is unmissable\u2014and thoroughly infectious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n