Did Timothée Chalamet Campaign Too Much for Marty Supreme? Are People Getting Annoyed?
Marty Supreme is one of the big awards contenders this year. So many people are claiming it as one of the best movies of the year. Timothée Chalamet seemed like he was the front runner to win Best Actor at the Oscars. But between him losing at BAFTA and SAG, his Oscar chances are in question. He’s also been campaigning a lot to try and win the Oscar, but is it too much? Is he starting to annoy people? Let’s talk about it!
My Thoughts
I’ll just get this out of the way, and I’ve said this before, but I’m not a Timothée Chalamet fan really at all. I’m sure he’s a nice guy; it seems like he has a good reputation in Hollywood. But I’ve never found him to be a great actor, the way many other people view him. Between his SAG speech last year when he won A Complete Unknown and his campaign for Marty Supreme, I haven’t liked him too much as a person. He seems very self-centered and self-indulgent and I find him annoying. His SAG speech last year really rubbed me the wrong way. He said he wanted to be viewed as one of the greats as Marlon Brando and Daniel Day-Lewis are. Which I can get, he’s in the industry and wants to be remembered as a great actor. But the way it was phrased sounded so self-indulgent and like he views himself as one of the greats really rubbed me the wrong way. He’s since said that his speech for that was because of Marty Supreme and how he just finished filming it, so he was in the mood for the character. They finished filming about three months prior to the SAG awards. The fact that it was the character feels like an excuse and it's ridiculous comments.
During the promotion for Marty Supreme, he’s been making comments regarding how he’s in pursuit of greatness, but what he said and how it’s phrased was horrible. In early December he made quotes saying that he wore bad contact lenses to make his eyesight bad so he could better wear glasses in the movie. That didn’t make me go “oh this sounds like a great performance” it made me go “that’s stupid”. He’s not stopping; he’s continuing to make comments that irritate him less. More recently he was asked about Dune: Part III and instead of talking about the production or the film as a whole. He compared himself to Marlon Brando in The Godfather and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Which is so stupid and another example of incredibly self-indulgent behavior from him. He’s comparing himself to two of the most acclaimed performances of all time, two performances that won Oscars. If that's self-indulgence, I don’t know what it is. It’s one thing to say about Josh Brolin or Jason Momoa, but about yourself, c’mon, let’s be serious here.
Is his Oscar Chances in Trouble?
Now that I have my personal thoughts on Mr. Chalamet out of the way, is he in trouble for the Oscar due to his comments? I would say yes. There’s one thing to campaign to win an Oscar, that’s important. Michael B. Jordan and Wagner Moura have been out doing interviews and campaigning this entire awards season. But there’s a difference between what they’re doing and what they’re saying. Jordan, Moura, or whoever’s comments aren’t so self-centered; they're celebrating the other people involved, not just himself.
He won early on at Critics Choice and the Golden Globes, which are of course big deals and huge for his chances. But that was when people were still largely ok with his comments; people weren’t frustrated with him. More importantly, Marty Supreme had just come out when those awards shows happened. So, the movie and Chalamet were fresh on people’s minds. But now with a few months removed from seeing the movie and awards season ramping up, people are probably starting to think that his comments are weird and too much. I don’t think it helps that it’s been continuous for months now. He started campaigning and promoting this movie in November, it’s now March. That’s four months of non-stop quotes and letting people know he wants an Oscar, and he wants people to think that he’s the best. It’s four months of very similar self-indulgent comments that I think people are getting tired of. If he said these quotes as promotion for the movie and then stopped when it came out, that’s one thing. But the fact that it’s continuous and still happening is bothering people. I think that the big reason why he lost at SAG was due to his campaign and quotes. If they were dialed back and not as self-indulgent then I think he might’ve won.
I think he is vulnerable to the Oscars. I’ll have Oscar predictions in the next few days. I don’t want to say whether or not I think he’s winning. But he’s vulnerable and somebody like Michael B. Jordan and Wagner Moura can easily overtake him. I think if he loses, he needs a little bit of self-reflecting time. He needs to stop trying to pursue winning an Oscar and focus on making good movies and if he wins an Oscar, it’s an extra bonus for him.
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