Timothée Chalamet & Martin Scorsese Have an Epic Conversation | GQ

all right Lock and Load you guys let's do it you got you got notes oh come on I'm talking to the greatest living director I gotta you're supposed to be talking well I also have some anecdotes about the weather in case [Music] [Applause] excellent hey come on everybody move on out I feel whenever I'm on a set I'm just like I'm not directing this you could direct it let's get a crane let's get a first time I saw him was in um a Lucas film I call me by your name yeah and so you know and I a great admire of Luca and I love the picture I always talk about um performances but they aren't really they're like behavioral where you don't see the acting you know what I mean yes and so um I connected there and I saw Dune you know which I enjoyed and I started to see a sense of rage you know and then they said they Chanel asked me to do this spot for Blue uh which you had already done I had done years ago right yeah had the first one they said they had this young gentleman named Timothy shalamay and I said ah that one I know and we had some kind of a dinner and talk Etc we had a plan for the I guess you call it a commercial I don't know what it is it's a little narrative I it's not provocative of other commercials and perfume commercials in a good way in a good way I think it's somewhat different than that and and so it's it's a story anyway um but how to break it through you know my latest film was over 3 hours this 60 seconds and it's so Mar it's only only 60 seconds the thing about 60 seconds is it's harder condensed condensed and every frame counts every frame you know I know we're talking digital but there's still frames in digital mhm but I mean one frame more two frame that's the way we're editing this thing add two frames take away a frame you know ju to position of images all the sort of thing so it's not an a fcil way of working it's actually I find these much more intense and it's a they're real um workouts more challenging yeah more challenging The Narrative itself was about the film actor and being on the road and um one of the things we referred to was the great uh short film by Federico felini Toby damit Toby damit yeah and I showed it to you and uh I said let's capture some of that feeling you know that's one of my favorite interactions with you is you said you've seen Toby damn it right and I thought this felini this your felini short no I haven't but I quickly quickly got onto it with that as an inspiration we we uh came up with the story somehow but developed into a kind of story and how that happened I'm not quite sure no but it's I I'm so grateful I felt but I love I felt so honored that you brought uh because um this didn't feel like a commercial and I guess the fear as an actor that's why I was so excited that you agreed to do it too is that you know you don't have to feel you know whatever like a product I know this was a total dream total short film what I walked away with the most we haven't even gotten a chance to speak about it but I was just so shocked about how unprecidented detail it was just so fascinating when filmmakers started out and I broke a lot of young filmmakers there enormously precious and maybe plotting sometimes here we were just like going you know well it was planned beforehand yeah to fly like that well not to fly like that but I was glad it flew yeah but no the the shots were designed or at least the I like to call it like a philosophy of a shot should this be a moving shot at all right or should it be static and if it's static what the hell size are you in the frame right is it from the waist up so that was all basically plan yeah I mean I mean then when you get into the like they're looking out the window when you see the uh uh the billboard the billboard I know you're going to walk towards camera but where do you stop um I didn't know there was a shot list basically I have it myself do you always work like that basically or not well back fures yes back in uh when I started doing uh my first films I would draw everything wow that sounds time intensive yeah well I was by myself anyway I was always by myself nobody wanted to be that's that's another story another I was always in a room by myself taxi driver was literally there literally across the street designed the whole picture and Drew all the pictures right across the street at the St Bridges hotel in that out that window I spent a lot of time doing that because first of all I like the idea of how to tell a story with pictures right but it also because it was so low budget MH I had to really have a plan have a plan so that it could be changed had you had an experience where you didn't have a plan that ined yes later on I tried I tried another film but it I seemed to work better with a plan really do it's like showing up memorized or showing up un memorized yes yes yes probably deal with a lot of people that are un memorized no it's true but you memorize is one thing knowing it's another right yeah as long as you know exactly as long as you know it you know you could start fooling around with stuff and but I tried a different experiment once and it didn't work for me but over the years the drawings became notes and little drawings in the margins of the of the script or let's say in good fellow actually was put into the script how silic shot shot lists or or that the actors would go off of in some way or no no as long as I had actors who could if I had a specific shot I wanted to get which was complicated as long as he or she would be able to behave uh unencumbered in the frame you know if I'm asking them to look backwards and walk forwards at the same time and that I found that to be a problem then I may have adjusted the shot you right right depend on what's more important uh their faces and what they're doing or this particular move to the left or right but it's amazing and after thr hours and Good Fellas there's shots sometimes that pushing rapidly on someone and they're doing something very natural behaviorally obviously dairo is one of the greatest ever but you'll be a camera's flying at him and he's like picking his teeth or something he's not Disturbed and uh that's why I was so seriously inspired working with you is that it was so Moon you saw I mean in certain cases you just hold the camera don't move right now I was shocked with Killers too it's very engaging I'm shocked only because of the the runtime but it's your grip the entire time that was our big gambling it's amazing U pacing wise all those characters feel out of that era Leo most of all I know I tell you well you know what it's like you're in a place like that you learn to live in it yeah and you become part of it yeah and I mean yeah it was a long shoot but a lot of my pictures has lately have been long right that's why I wanted to do this I wanted to change the style right away I had to freshen up right right I had to change it doesn't mean go faster I had to think differently you know to force myself to think differently no I loved it was lean it was muscular and it was like way more running gun than I ever would have thought I wanted to be free and open yeah it was constructed as I say and designed right but yeah but there's room to play yeah that's what I loved um from my perspective sometimes Direction can be really explicit and then when something's really explicit it's quite hard to get to I can't imagine how how you do it yeah because you kind of lose your mind you know but when and I felt you nudging which is really the best because if you're getting sort of gently and then if you don't get there I felt that too if I was like it's not going to work it we're going to go do something else do something else well because but you see the nature of this spot lent itself to that because of um uh the spontaneity of the show let's say or the backstage chaos you know look being specific and blocking specifically it's another way of artistic expression right you know and there are times when I have to do it right you know but this particular story didn't need that yes you know I I think we we hit we hit the pacing right getting in the the van was hard when we hit you with the camera but that was used that's when I was laughing the first time I saw this SP CU I thought wow this is again unprecipitated you look up you know it kind of indicates the audience that what you're going to see for the next minute minute and a half whatever it is is something very different and special I shot a movie in New York 7 years ago on the streets whatever and it was so wonderful to to rap and then walk home feels more like a creative exercise I guess well the city has the and they always use the cliche of the energy but it does have the energy right it simply does because everybody's on top of each other right I mean look at it all the buildings on top of each it's different from La La is spread out you get the car back in 1971 when when I learned to drive I had to learn to drive out there it was wonderful it's made for cars yeah you know and you just turn the music up your uh your Edge rots out there though yeah it tended to but luckily I was able to do films like taxi driver and then right mainly because they saw main streets and they wanted to Nero and myself together on that film but it was a different New York oh that was the New York of um you know Ford to City Dro Dead We shot in the summer of 76 it was the most apparently the most violent no well violent yes but you see for me violence here is always the same I I I I grew up here I I'm always walking in the street a certain way or I know not yeah he was checking your shoulder so the thing about it is now I I I just know I could see a person coming down that may not because I grew up downtown on the in a rough area L side when the bowy was the bowy and it was pretty scary growing up as a kid but um what had happened was that the city was going to go bankrupt and they asked the uh from my long story short they asked for federal the bronc is on fire Insurance scheme yeah yeah it was a buildings were collapsing that was that famous building that collapsed uh that we put in vinyl it was uh apparent the lowest e that the city has ever been in was then was that mid when we were sh perfect cinematic background yeah but for me it was normal right I was used to that I grew up in Hell's Kitchen um and uh Hell's Kitchen changed a lot from when I was growing up cuz when I was growing up it was still a little bit on the edge in the Port Authority Bus Terminal and that the port Authority's kept its Edge by Nature I guess yeah it has I mean the neighborhood is much dressed up come up a bit but the Port Authority was I used to use that a lot I was living in New Jersey actually been in the mid-60s it was very cheap to live in Union City or Jersey City and I coming in and out of that Port Authority Bus Terminal what I saw in there yeah in the' 60s my God it was horrifying right the only places I think probably in Alphabet City still has a sense of uh the old tenaments that I grew up in that's what was weird working on this commercial too is is uh it's not tropes but so much of the iconicism of New York has stemmed from your work so it's bizarre to all of a sudden be you know well the only thing is like when we when you're down in the uh in the street in SoHo that you're walking along at the end of the uh when I was growing up that street is where you went to steal hubc caps and now it's uh and also other things yeah so I I got that I stole the H and I was with guys you know kids now it's like being in um Province toown Connecticut I guess I never was there but it's fancy as hell yeah yeah I love in Taxi Driver haven't just watched it again I feel like you see so many things about moody or people on the edge watching it again the opening shots are like super beautiful and Serene and the music's playing and it's not lecturing the movie is not lecturing you and telling no I just saw the city that way all the time one of my favorite things in the city is the steam coming up out of the street M and so I had to have the car go through the steam that opening shine yeah yeah I had to and I was done on 22nd Street somewhere late at night that was criticized at one point by certain snobby critics saying and that's the level of the metaphor of the film film hell you know cab is coming from hell I said no that's New York it's it's the steam in the streets it is what it is and when you see things come through that steam that way you could think of if you want you could think of The Inferno you could think of paradise right you don't know right you know um it's a beauty of the city late at night that way when you just pipes of smoke coming up all the way up second and third Avenue oh man yeah absolutely beautiful and the red lights the tail lights of the cars it was always raining too that that summer you guys got it was always raining finally we were waiting for the rain and we started to go 2 or 3 days over schedule and they were really mad at us the studio was screaming and I got in a lot of trouble because I'm going to pull the plug on the picture and so I said I we're shooting in the ring so it's not going to match we'll have to figure out how to well we better shoot fast then now yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah get it done get it done I still go back to basics you know right normal lens long lens wide angle lens right and then from there you could go infinite right you know and so uh movement or no movement movement of the frame or movement of the camera in the frame because a pan is different from a track right right so I stay with those Basics and then if there are new things that that could be implemented in there using focal length in a certain way but I do find that um after all these years uh and with all the new technology there are more choices and it's kind of good way except that more than two3 of those choices you don't need to make right cuz end up wasting time or something it's wasting time yeah so it always goes down to the basic the basic as an actor and as a director what do you want to say right and what's in the way something's in the way what the hell is it is it technology or is somebody you know in front of you and you're trying to do something and they're distracting you it's it's that it's that simple right and now with there's a few filmmakers that have a command of both right yeah yeah it's not get sucked into just The Cutting Edge well I think a lot lot of those filmmakers are recent in because they they grew up with the technology I did not it's another generation yeah it's going to be interesting what you guys do well that's why I'm and I don't want to be cynical and I I don't want to take myself out of being a member of my generation as I have in the past but um I just think uh boredom is a good thing and the way I was intensely bored growing up and had to read books or if I could get my hands on a movie at my grandma's house you cherish that movie and with too much information too much access you know what I mean you can't you're not going to well was a similar what you're talking about boredom in a sense because of um in my case when I was 3 years old 1945 I contracted asthma and my parents working class they were not they didn't have books in the house and that sort of thing they would just take me to the movies a lot or let me eventually go by myself to the movies and I had this little tiny area in the apartment before everybody came back from work wow then I to learn how to read novels and this priest was a interesting guy father prip was the one who gave us Graham green and James Joyce and that sort of about for 13 or 14 right and it started to read that was a whole issue right you know but I think uh it was peace meal in some way yeah yeah but what happens is that he old take the horse to water you know and if the horse drinks you know so that I had had a couple of people who were doing that for me and we were sustaining ourselves we were continuing we took advantage of those uh suggestions and guidance and it wasn't always friendly these were tough guys but they weren't telling you what to think or what was good they were kind of giving you the keys in some way giving you a basis of morality too right and somebody pointed out said like in killers of the flower moon or number number of the films I made where the level of corruption is so deep because it's not the the society is not rooted in in Morality or any kind of spirituality that's what human nature might be that without that guidance or without that even dialogue uh between people about morality and spirituality becomes it becomes pure corruption right I mean if I you know in the the movie it because the Native Americans don't understand the value of money if I you know charge you a dollar for this glass of water they pay it and then they realize you realize they don't really understand paper money or anything like that they're rich but they don't know why um and they don't know they don't know what money is so when they come in again I'm going to say it's $10 and they pay it right so I'm going to say next time $25 I'll keep 15 meantime we're friends we take care of each other and just like you know you got the money anyway I don't I have to work for the money you're not I mean but that's an interesting moral issue MH if it's only a dollar charge a dollar and so that's the interesting thing about how we could become complicit in um Al absolutely genocide yeah and a genocide not told about really I I wasn't educated on it but the movie is still very spiritual though like a almost all your it is I think it is I think it is a spiritual core to it it's in how corruption just uh infiltrates every aspect of your life and you could learn to live with it because you don't react against it you don't speak up that's what's so great about the Leo character and it you know without giving anything away this guy's a complicated figure to say the least but it's handled so delicately you don't feel that you're taking them uh you know you're not instructing the viewer how to feel either way no no no no no no not at all not at all like uh in the case of uh Wolf of Wall Street for example I only learned the other day from uh an interviewer who said you're not aware of the war of Wolf of Wall Street I said what are you talking about said well there was a big screening at paramont the picture and the for the critics in New York apparently I was told this there were two camps one camp that love the picture in the other camp that was Furious saying I didn't take a moral stand on Jordan Belford and one of the critics from the other group that liked the picture said do you really need Martin SC sayi to tell you that that's wrong right that's well said it's well said you really need him to tell you that drunk well said he knows a drunk is that moralistic attitude bore you a little bit now or no well it's beyond boring I think you know it's always been around I mean well because American's a Puritan country well it says it is MH right well that's what's confusing to me as a young person is but there's a difference there's a difference between religion and spirituality okay and religion could could taken the taken the wrong way could become something that is restricting and becomes intolerable and becomes judgmental judgmental key word there yeah yeah so you have a big problem good example is Killers the flower Moon yeah there were all Europeans who were Protestants right you know I'm not condemning Protestants I'm just saying that was the um the moral code they had a morality uh you know when a guy like Bill hail played by dairo who says I love these oage people and he's killing them but he does love them now what is that it's fantastic because you don't feel them there's no music cue that made that says this guy's evil you know no it's it's he's just going to do what he's going to do but that that's the the thing I think uh ultimately about concentration for younger people and taking the time not just to make a movie to become famous that's good too if you can yeah but but I think ultimately if you have something to say if you're really burning and not just the party line yes exactly because the most important things are things that are new and fresh point away forward point you to how people are feeling it's harder to no now there's great there's less mainstreaming of things now I think things are a little more I was going to say the other night we were at this big event I that people were talking about that the news is uh different now and this and I said look back when I was growing up there was CBS NBC ABC it's gone right I said in effect the mainstream is going does that shock you having been so repr representative of your generation to feel now like what the hell am I looking at kind of thing or no um but you're so young in spirit I mean that I'm not just saying that smoke than no no that that's nice but I I I like keeping that youth and like keeping an open mind but an open mind means less restrictions and these days um for good reason and for good intent there is a great deal of a closing of the Mind Right kill Killers walks that line incredibly because tells us story of a moral Injustice basic more than a moral Injustice a human Injustice but you still have characters that are wonderfully complicated and yeah yeah and that's that's that's hard to achieve well because because there isn't such it isn't as simple as suddenly you go into a world it's all morally injust and everybody's very serious and you they're all villains no it's the guy next to you it's you even Catholicism was confession you have to examination of conscience or ma it was Ma self-criticism you know what I mean right but not to be afraid to to to to criticize yourself right um and don't come don't become cowed by what other people think right and what they want you to think I should say right do you feel like the story around your life and your work you know uh impacted the kind of movies you were making I don't know the story of my life was I guess Round Up in the movies the mid '70s that was a little rough period pretty rough period till about 78 7678 were pretty tough and came out of it at the end of 78 mhm I just embraced myself from where I came from and did this film that janir really wanted me to make over the years but I had resisted and that was Raging Bull I think I read that you hadn't wanted to do it at first well for many different reasons he saw it sooner than I did he knew it was me he knew it was in me the Jak Lama of character that we were making and so then I felt comfortable and I realized oh I know you didn't see at first you no I was blind because you thought you didn't relate to it or uh it was first of all we hadn't we hadn't really Consolidated the script like Mar it's a huge story yeah and the last 30 minutes or a different movie in an amazing way yeah but there were different things the the relationship with dairo was changing too cuz of his stardom yeah and and other things do you want to work again with with him you know what I'm saying I had to think about that well some of the best collaborations happen with you know yeah yeah yeah but we went through that period and we came out the other side and was Raging Bull right there you go so then we did it again and K comedy then I wanted to go off into Last Temptation Of Christ to other films that I want to gangs in New York things like that and uh ultimately when I say embraced where I came from Raging Bull was uh you know it's the' 70s and where I came from people were still alive mhm my parents were still living down in the tenament MH um a lot of the stories I was putting in my movies had elements of Truth in them mhm a lot of people down there were still alive names you couldn't mention so yes you're there's a sensitivity around these so I you know I was in LA I had long hair I had cowboy clothes I love I saw picture you at the Film Festival recently and I I something already I met yeah yeah so so no what happened I had to grow the beard because I looked so young everybody was laughing you know they thought it was 12 years I said no no okay so I grew a beard but what I'm getting at is that uh I couldn't really talk too much or Embrace too much my background but by the time I had did raing B said the hell with it right and I went back and my mother and father in the film and we just started using your mom she in it y was it simp like a like simply a respectful fear or more than that it was a caution it was caution yes yes no no a lot of people were still alive yeah there before the Little Italy became the Little Italy that it is now right it was a closed Society right no names mentioned ever right it's nice when you come back with the director there a there's a dialogue there's a rapport also on the acting side you feel like oh this guy this person really likes me CU I'm I'm back again yeah exactly me out yeah exactly it gives you confidence but you've done that I mean legendarily with dairo and DiCaprio yeah and we'll do Chanel commercials every three yes exactly no but with them though it's a different thing because dairo knew me from low E side when we were 16 years old so he knew the people I grew up with right still does uh so a few of them left he was on with another group uh up on kenmir street we were on uh Prince and and hon okay Prince and hon Street Elizabeth M mulber every now and then we met in these after hour bars late at night respectful and always very very nice to each other some of the guys he was with were I didn't like I miss might I'm talk yeah myself and a couple of my friends we the stay guys stay was he already acting I couldn't tell I don't think so I lost track of him is what happened and because Brian dep had been working with dairo and high mom wow and so they said you got to meet him and and after the dinner was over we were sitting in another room and and he looked at me he says uh you used to hang out with ctie right and Joe morale and you're with the remember ALB eyes I said yeah he said I'm Bobby I said Bobby you mean Bobby from K he says yeah wow I said him realize and that's how we came back together linked my God and now you live five blocks from each other or whatever I don't know he seems to be around the corner yeah you see I can't tell in between rols he doesn't look he looks Anonymous I have no idea who he is he could be right next to me he's at B&B Bagels on the line behind you something yeah yeah you don't know what's going on I mean one night we had dinner with Michael Powell the Great British director uh we preparing for Raging Bull he wanted to ask him questions about gaining weight there's a sequence that Powell does in this film Kel blimp I said well we'll meet Bob tonight at dinner and there was a apartment I had on uh 57 Street and we're up there eating and Bob's next to him and everything's fine and after the main course before dessert he said I understand dairo will be coming tonight I said he's right next to you oh my God he had realized the whole time because he's very quiet and anous Anonymous you feel feel it in his work you feel someone that's not vain basically I know that's the key because Hey listen if the shot plays best on my back and on somebody else's face play it right whereas other actors they need highlight they need to look a certain way not talking about me by the way he didn't need any he didn't any um and with Leo Leo just interesting 30 30-year difference but he has similar sensibility mhm and a curiosity mhm curiosity is the key thing you know man is it ever that's the biggest thing there's a Bob Dylan quote from Chronicles his book I might butcher it a little bit but he says if your ability to uh Inspire be curious or observed is compromised in any way then your creativity is compromised that's right yeah and that's the danger of today too yeah because what there's an answer to everything yeah an answer and there's a understandably a sensitivity mhm you know which has to be balanced with art somehow mhm because uh the art be free I just read for taxi driver that there was some like all the directors had come up with some rule or something I'm going to butcher this too but that to to be moralistic to not put violence in movies or something yeah I still got that I got that oh my God I was I was shunned for Good Fellas now why Shun in certain Italian restaurants it wouldn't let me in would do you feel like over the years that perception changed no it I mean look violence is that in the ancient Greeks violence usually took place offstage and it was described right messenger comes in says you should see what happened right right right you should see what they did to to you know helus he was up there they they tore him apart in the baket oh my God you know also helps the fight budget and the St budget yeah yeah but um but it was just as scary and just as disturbing um highly stylized I guess I've had this kind of question about violence going all the way back to main streets MH you know but I grew up in a place that was you know violence was form of expression right and communication yeah yeah and it was serious there was a difference between a a friendly slap and a slap mhm and that was up to you to determine you could see that in Good Fellas when he says you think I'm funny was that scripted no yeah that wasn't scripted no something something happened to Joe in his life and he told me and he said he got himself out of it he got him by saying he was on the yeah you're screwing with me you're screwing with me guy said I had you there you bastard I had you you know and I said that's the story it wasn't even the script we put it in that reminds me when I was in Middle School on 1008 in Amsterdam and uh I saw one of my good friends Jordan the week before someone said to him he got basically a tussle in an argument with a guy and uh he said to the guy you're so tough punch me in the face and he leaned in and the other guy was terrified he backed down so you know a week later I was getting hassled by some kids I leaned into the guy said you so tough punch me in the face and I got one of the few times in my life I got punched so bad really hurts that really one of the few times in my life I got really rocked in the face it's good lesson though yeah no I I I I found luckily I had the asthma because they leave me alone they were some of the toughest guys they would P fool you around and get mad at you and then say ah it's all right the kid's sick and they would take yeah come here and they would took care of me oh I love in the uh in the in the spot when you say well I'd be kinder to myself wait I haven't seen I don't remember that this must be the new version yeah we put that anyway thank you thanks for let me chat like this thanks can we settle we're just getting the last line right here and we're we're ending hey you guys settled or what it can't be that bad are you guys just trying to get he's good what are you talking is that one a big deal this kid sorry guys this be take two let's see how sincere this is thanks again thanks again for chatting about well thank you thank you Timothy and uh I guess I'll see you later right I'll see you tonight okay we'll celebrate this [Music] terrific

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Id: sB_JZLp521g

Length: 29min 56sec (1796 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023