Timothée Chalamet: how the prince of indie grew into a multiplex star

A role in the sci-fi epic Dune has transformed the young actor into a bona fide leading man – but not one from the old Hollywood mould

In September, the Met Gala in New York – Anna Wintour’s annual fusion of fundraising gala and celebrity parade – redesigned itself for generation Z. Instagram sponsored the event, Justin Bieber was its headline performer, and four young whippersnappers were enlisted as co-chairs: singer Billie Eilish, tennis player Naomi Osaka, poet Amanda Gorman and – the elder statesman of the quartet at 25 – Timothée Chalamet.

Chalamet turned up, typically tousle-haired and puppy-eyed, in an outfit of two halves. Up top, a cropped, snugly tailored satin tuxedo jacket by avant-garde designer Haider Ackermann, complete with cummerbund and blingy brooches. Below, a pair of baggy cream jogging bottoms, tucked into white socks and Converse trainers. Half princely film star, half kid at play: it’s a look that encapsulates the persona of the biggest, most hysterically obsessed-over teen idol to emerge from the movies since the heyday of Twilight.

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The show the military couldn’t stop: Luca Guadagnino on We Are Who We Are

His new TV series about wild goings-on at an army base near Venice horrified the US Department of Defense. Did it also cost him his relationship? The Call Me By Your Name director reveals all

Lockdown was a nightmare for Luca Guadagnino. His dad died, his partner left and his myriad film projects had to be put in mothballs. As soon as restrictions were lifted, he jumped in his car and drove south from Milan, along empty motorways, right through the May night. He realises now he was in search of home.

Guadagnino, true to form, immortalised the trip on his iPhone and the resulting film is a lovely thing: part travelogue, part elegy, rattling around the director’s old village in Sicily. At one point Guadagnino stands outside his former house and inhales the smells from the open window – humidity, old grapes – like Proust with his madeleine. He wonders what kind of world the pandemic has left behind. He asks friends and colleagues for advice and support. “For a forest to stay healthy,” one tells him, “it has to periodically burn down.”

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