There's More to Charles Melton Than Meets the Eye

The former 'Riverdale' star graduated to big-screen acclaim with a stunning performance in 'May December'

There’s more to Charles Melton than meets the eye—though what meets the eye at the moment is pretty darn pleasing. It’s a rare overcast day in Los Angeles, and the May December star and former model is lounging on a chaise in the lush pool area of a stylish house in Silver Lake, seemingly unaware of the People photoshoot commotion surrounding him.

The 33-year-old actor is relentlessly chill between snaps, stealing his sister’s leftover french fries, chatting with the photographer about Brooklyn neighborhoods (“I love Cobble Hill. If I had a family, that’s where I’d want to be”) and in a refreshing twist from the usual celeb shoot demands, had only two requests: “Everything’s in Its Right Place” by Radiohead and “Rich Spirit” by Kendrick Lamar on the background music playlist.

It’s hard to reconcile this ridiculously handsome, amiable guy—or as his former Riverdale costar Cole Sprouse joked on Instagram, “slab of A5 wagyu beef”—with the repressed, prematurely middle-aged character he plays in Todd Haynes’s critically acclaimed Netflix drama.

It’s a stunning performance that garnered accolades almost immediately after the film’s release last November: wins for him at the Gotham, New York Film Critics Circle Awards and nominations at the Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards, among them. (Though not at the Oscars, which many thought was the biggest non-Barbie-related snub. But we’ll get to that later.)

Loosely based on the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal in the mid-‘90s, May December centers on Melton’s Joe, a 36-year old husband and father of three who entered into a relationship with his now-wife Gracie (Julianne Moore) when he was 13 and she was in her 30s. Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, an actress who shadows the family to research her role in a movie adaptation of their story—and triggers a re-examination of the couple’s long-buried past. 

“There's this arrested development that Joe has, this kind of internal tragedy from his adolescence being taken from him,” says Melton. “[He has] the immense responsibility of being a father, while simultaneously experiencing the probing of tabloid culture. He had to survive and create this adaptive adult child in order to navigate his life.”

Heavy stuff for an actor who was previously best known for playing Archie’s nemesis Reggie Mantle on the long-running teen soap Riverdale and starring in Ariana Grande’s “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” video (which may or may not culminate in an infinity pool throuple). But he more than holds his own against his Oscar-winning collaborators—even if he won’t admit it.

“They just elevate everything around them. The way they work, their technicality, they're masters of their craft,” he says of Moore and Portman.

Haynes, his director, begs to differ: “On top of his sensitivity and intuition and instincts, he is an incredibly skilled actor from a technical standpoint,” says Haynes, 63. “The physicality that he brings to the role of Joe is really not something that a novice or just somebody who's just following their instincts would necessarily know how to do.”

No stranger to directing award-winning performances, Haynes (Carol, Far From Heaven) knew he had something special when he received Melton’s audition tape.

“Charles's instincts and his choices were like no one else's, in that he seemed to show you somebody who was not yet fully functioning, [who had] the sense of somebody who was kind of trapped in a long relationship that gave him a very specific role to play and limited all the other aspects of his person,” he says. “Most of the other actors felt available. Charles seemed to understand the dutiful side of Joe around Gracie and her anxieties and breakdowns, but he made it seem like something very private that really happened behind closed doors. His performance revealed things to me that really penetrated deeply into the story and into the past of this relationship.”

Portman says Melton’s layers extended offscreen as well: “He's a super interesting person—I mean, he's a college football player, then he's like, ‘I'm reading about bell hooks as visions of sexual identity and gender identity,” recalls the star, 42. “Who are you? I love this! If this is what the new generation is like, bring it on."

Adds Moore, 63: “He's so handsome, and he buried that in this performance. You don't see that at all. You see a completely different person.”

Born in Juneau, Alaska to Sukyong, a homemaker, and Phil, who served in the military, Melton was a self-proclaimed “Army brat” who bounced around Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Korea (where Sukyong was born), Texas and Germany while growing up with his two younger sisters, Tammie and Patricia. But he considers Kansas home since he attended high school there and later went on to play football for Kansas State University. A few concussions later, he questioned whether his future should include more time on the gridiron.

In 2012, after hearing a radio ad for a talent showcase, he went to an open call where he garnered a lot of interest—and promptly dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles.

He made ends meet by dog walking and delivering Chinese takeout before landing Riverdale in 2017. Roles in The Sun Is Also a Star and Bad Boys for Life followed, and more recently, a memorable guest spot as a scruffy race car driver opposite Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face. Which, incidentally, was what he was shooting when he learned that he won the role of Joe in May December: (“I was in Upstate New York, I was wearing a race car driver's suit, and it was like 120 degrees outside. It was very surreal for me.”)

But nothing could prepare him for the awards season ride that the unnerving Netflix drama launched: hobnobbing with the likes of Bradley Cooper and Robert Downey Jr., making kimchi with his mom and Steven Yeun, and having new professional opportunities offered to him, even if the whirlwind campaign didn’t end in an Oscar nomination.

“The moments that I’ve had and the words I’ve shared with people along this journey. . . that is what matters,” he says. “If I’m thinking about this or whatever may come, then I’m not really existing in the moment.”

The ride hasn’t all been smooth. Vili Fualaau, 40, who was the real-life inspiration for Melton’s character, said he was “offended” by May December and that no one involved in the film reached out to him.

When asked how he feels about Fualaau’s criticism, Melton says, “I really used my imagination to discover and explore the root of our human emotions. Emotions, whether it be sadness or repression or anger, they have many different faces. Exploring those faces with the guideline of [co-screenwriter] Samy [Burch’s] script was one of the most exhilarating things I could dream of.”

For now the actor is happy to enjoy some downtime before preparing for his next project, a leading role opposite WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen in the dark comedy Love Child, directed by Welcome to the Dollhouse’s Todd Solondz. According to Deadline, the film follows Misty (Olsen), who is stuck in a loveless marriage. When handsome stranger Easy (Melton) appears, Misty’s 11-year-old son devises a plan to get rid of his brutish father so that his mother can marry Easy instead.

Melton, who’s previously dated Camila Mendes and Chloe Bennet, seems to have a far less complicated love life than his onscreen characters.

“I have my dog, Neya. I love her,” he says with a grin when asked about his romantic status. (He also cheekily deflects a “What do you look for in a non-canine partner” question by talking up his new partnership with a production company.)  “I'm just trying to be the best son, the best big brother, the best friend I can be to the people that love me most,” he says. “That's where I'm at.”

Fittingly, the actor credits his parents and sisters with keeping him grounded amid the Hollywood blitz. “Moments, they come and go. People magazine comes and goes,” he says. “What doesn't come and go is my family, and they're with me at every moment. These are the people that love me, that I will be with in every part of my journey in life. They speak truth to me.”

Especially his mother, who Melton often takes as his date to industry events.

"Who wouldn't want their mom to be with them?” he says of the woman whose jars of homemade kimchi were sent to journalists covering May December during awards season. “She’ll always tell me, no matter how old I get, I'm always going to be her baby Charles: ‘I don't care if you have a house, and you're paying bills, and you have kids, you'll always be my baby.’ ”

Melton paid that nurturing forward with the young actors who played his teenage children in May December, Gabriel Chung, Piper Curda and Elizabeth Yu. He took it upon himself to fill in holes in their cinematic knowledge—the trio watched The Matrix, Gladiator and Fight Club for the first time under his tutelage—and letting them do laundry at his Silver Lake home.

They all also got matching butterfly tattoos based on a hand drawing by Melton, while filming in Savannah, according to Yu: "I was super nervous, but then I was like, 'I already share my skin with these people, to a certain degree.' So getting a tattoo was really special for me in this little mock family we had."

But Melton insists the experience wasn’t an attempt to Method-act being a thirtysomething father. “These are all things I would do naturally if I wasn't playing their dad,” he says. “I allowed that to really just inform some of the choices that I made. My goal isn't to be like, ‘Oh, I'm going to experience this so I can use it.’ No. It's, ‘I'm going to experience this because this is who I am, Charles. This is what's in my heart.’ ”

Those last two sentences appear to encapsulate the unique space Melton seems to occupy right now: a teen heartthrob turned prestige player. A father figure who isn’t above playing video games all day to cheer himself up when his favorite football team (the Philadelphia Eagles, in case you’re wondering) loses. A rising star who hasn’t yet had his heart media trained out of his answers.

Says Haynes: “His lack of narcissism is really remarkable given what he looks like. There's an innocence to that, to all of that where he seems to still be kind of astonished that people check him out.” He pauses. “And maybe that's just another part of his really good acting.”

Credits

Photographer: Erik Carter

Cinematographer: Eric Longden

Groomer: Candice Birns

Stylist: Samantha McMillen

WARDROBE

Light Blue Look Pajamas: Prada, Slippers: BODE, Earrings: Starling

Brown Look Sweater: King & Tuckfield, Trousers: AMIRI, Earrings: Starling

Cream Look Suit: Todd Snyder, Sandals: Loro Piana, Earrings: Starling

Jacket Look Jacket, Pants, Shoes: BODE, Sunglasses: Oliver Peoples, Earrings: Starling

Blue Look Coat, Shirt, Tie, Shorts, Loafers: Valentino, Earrings: Starling

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