Timothée Chalamet understands the true nature of greatness. In Marty Supreme, he plays a character loosely based on a former two-time US men’s singles table tennis champion. In A Complete Unknown, he played Bob Dylan at the exact moment he decided to reshape all of pop culture in his own image. His upcoming third Dune film is based on a book that is literally called Messiah. So when Timothée Chalamet singles out a figure for greatness, understand that the greatness is warranted.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that Timothée Chalamet thinks Susan Boyle is great. Not only great, but one of the greatest Britons to have ever lived.
In a recent interview with the BBC, Chalamet was asked to list his favourite British people. After naming David and Victoria Beckham, Lewis Hamilton and Fakemink (a rapper who has worked with EsDeeKid, a performer some suspect is Chalamet in disguise). And then he named Susan Boyle. As the interviewer laughed in surprise, Chalamet clarified his choice. “She dreamt big,” he said. “She dreamt bigger than all of us. Who wasn’t moved by that? I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Susan Boyle, for those of you without hearts, is a singer who shot to fame after auditioning for Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. The clip of her audition went viral because people could not comprehend the sheer disparity between her appearance (a normal middle-aged woman) and her singing voice (loud and impassioned). Her first album, I Dreamed a Dream, sold 10 million copies. A musical was made about her journey. Fox bought the film rights. She reportedly has a net worth of £22 million.
All of which constitutes a stunning achievement. However, the bigger question is: really? To be clear, Susan Boyle is undoubtedly a great example of British talent. But does Timothée Chalamet really believe that, or is he just messing about for clicks?
This is becoming a bit of an issue with Timothée Chalamet. He seems to perpetually live in an emotional hinterland where nobody can quite discern his proper level of sincerity. For example, he recently promoted Marty Supreme with what sounded like a Trumpian level of self-aggrandisement, telling an interviewer that “It’s been like seven, eight years that I’ve been handing in really, really committed top-of-the-line performances … This is really some top-level shit.”
Taken on the surface, this seems like something that could scuttle a career. It paints him as an insular, out-of-touch, grandstanding blowhard, and it’s hard to reward that sort of person with an award. The fact that the clip of the interview has since been deleted from YouTube suggests that this might be the case.
But on the other hand, come on, this is Timothée Chalamet we’re talking about. It’s the guy who rides Lime bikes to his premieres. It’s the guy who enters his own lookalike competitions. It’s the guy who, at the very least, refuses to deny conspiracy theories that he’s actually a scouse rapper in a balaclava. So surely the fact that he’d choose to act like a self-important windbag while promoting a film where he plays a self-important windbag would be entirely in keeping with his personality – and of apiece with the press tour today.
Which brings us back to Susan Boyle. Really and truly, there is only one way for anyone to know if Timothée Chalamet does actually love Boyle, or whether it’s just another one of his faux-sincere ironic performance art pranks. And for this I need to call upon my entire journalistic brethren.
Interviewers, please, when you are granted time with Timothée Chalamet, I urge you to only ask him questions about Susan Boyle. Ask him what his five favourite songs of hers are. Ask him who directed the video for her cover version of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day. Ask him what he thinks of the ethical implications of her decision to duet with Elvis Presley on her rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful. See if he knows the name of the act that ultimately beat her on Britain’s Got Talent. What Susan Boyle merch does he have? How many times has he seen her live?
Only this level of rigorous, evidence-based journalism will be able to help us get to the bottom of this. In fact, you know what? Let Timothée Chalamet talk to me about this. Let me set him a quickfire Susan Boyle trivia round face to face. I’m being serious. The people need to know because, if Chalamet has really just decided to take Susan Boyle’s name in vain for clicks, then god help us all.
