There Would Be No Timothée Chalamet Without His Relationship With Black Culture

In the wake of a tentative (and since-ratified) SAG-AFTRA deal, Timothée Chalamet and his disarmingly angular visage kicked into publicity high gear and swung by 30 Rockefeller Plaza last month to host Saturday Night Live in the run-up to his latest film project, Paul King’s highly anticipated musical blockbuster Wonka. It was the actor’s second time up at bat in the famed studio, and his monologue opened with the standard trappings of Lorne Michaels’ legacy program: canned, self-effacing jokes with pauses built in for applause, mildly pointed observations about contemporary celebrity affairs, and a campy yet gracious nod—via a kitschy musical number, Willy Wonka cane included—to the shameless circuit of press and self-promotion that NBC milks in order to wrangle Hollywood’s biggest for an hour of sketch comedy each week.

Sometime after the asides shouting out Fandango discount codes (damnhughgrantgotthatoompaloompadumptruck, in case you were wondering) and gesturing at A.I.–generated crowds, the melody makes a hard pivot: The melancholy piano of “Pure Imagination” is exchanged for a scattershot imitation trap beat, and SNL cast member Marcello Hernandez joins Chalamet onstage, where they rap about being adults with baby faces. It’s a jocular performance reminiscent of SNL’s Lonely Island era—one where the joke is partially in the catchiness and in the commitment to the absurdity of the record, but also in the fundamental hypebeast-tinged irreverence to the hip-hop art form that makes the parody seem so amusing. Partway through, Punkie Johnson joins the duo, donning a vivid fuchsia wig from Spirit Halloween, in a clear homage to Nicki Minaj’s Barbie persona in likeness and in animated rapping intonations, although not in lyrical capacity; Kenan Thompson also comes in to round out the group as the ditty comes to a close, with a quick series of couplets on how his face has remained the same from his Kenan & Kel days.

The reaction to the midperformance switch was mixed, ranging from genuine amusement to bewilderment that veered on being mildly affronted, especially on behalf of the Pink Friday 2 rapper. But the rap parody is not, we can assume, just a desperate attempt to rile up Minaj’s Barbz. Rather, it is a cheeky—albeit poorly executed—nod to a distinct part of Chalamet’s persona and history: “Timmy Tim,” the actor’s rap alter ego, as famously documented 11 years ago on the stage of the prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts in New York. Before he was nabbing Academy Award nominations and hanging out with the likes of Luca Guadagnino, Noah Baumbach, and Greta Gerwig, Chalamet was emulating Nicki Minaj—a fellow LaGuardia alum—and other rappers, busting out his own choreography, and throwing himself into not just consuming but actively participating in Black culture. (“What’s wrong with that kid, does he think that he’s Black?” he quips in a particularly rowdy high school performance.)

“Timmy Tim” remains a key part of Chalamet’s lore—and his public image. His appeal as a celebrity is a high-wire act, balancing his boyish charm with his high ceiling as a thespian and his hypebeast enthusiasm for Black culture. Much of Chalamet’s early press and charm was framed around his casual proximity to urban cool—he would speak about living in the Bronx, rap Cardi B lyrics, openly acknowledge his former rap “alter ego” on late-night shows, and make references to a much-memed “Statistics” rap of his that, by my estimation, seemed to be made exclusively to bring Lin-Manuel Miranda to tears. His ability to traverse in and out of a “swag” aesthetic at will was endlessly exciting to a buttoned-up press corps easily titillated by the slightest aberration. There was a near-breathy fascination with the fact that the first album he ever bought was 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ at age 7 or 8. (His sister persuaded their mom to let him buy the explicit version from Tower Records.) Which Ye lyric would he be caught rapping along to next during a film promo run? Which A-list rapper collective would he manage to get invited to dinner with and enthusiastically report on for the late-night circuit? It was befuddling and thrilling to interviewers and hosts that Chalamet not only engaged in the space of “Black cool” but sought to be included. What might have just been a fun fact—and, indeed, it seems as if he’s genuinely just having fun, whether he’s talking about his hip-hop dancing skills or caught kicking back at a now-viral cookout—became an inextricable part of the Timothée Chalamet package, a dichotomy that fans and magazines alike could reach for when championing the actor as unique and different, a rare diamond in the rough.

But this dichotomy—the mystique of this chic thespian whose command of the French language and dizzyingly sharp facial structure are indicative of his cosmopolitan flair, while also happening to be bohemian enough to vibe at a cookout—works only if you view art and cinema as diametrically opposed to hip-hop, urban cool, and Black culture. To those who continue to separate the indie film scene from the height of Complex Magazine’s heyday, Chalamet may confound and defy expectations. What that framework misses, however, are two simple truths: For one, Blackness has been part of the cultural conversation, to the point where there isn’t a music critic around who couldn’t tell you about the sea of white, avowed Kid Cudi fans who were faithful acolytes of his Man on the Moon era—like Chalamet, now a close friend of the rapper’s, is. Furthermore, Chalamet is not just a French auteur artboi who looks plucked straight out of a Baroque painting, nor is he a just a so-called “swag-era millennial” riding the penetration of Black urban trends into mainstream cool: He’s a lifelong New Yorker, a product of the Theater District’s Manhattan Plaza (the same building where Alicia Keys grew up), the famed arts program at LaGuardia High School, and New York University. “Just like with acting, you have to grow up quickly in New York,” he said in an interview early on in his career. “It helped me with my poise. And it gave me the ability to be calm on set at 16: I could go into my own world and not be fazed by everything going on around me.”

It is Chalamet’s metropolitan-influenced upbringing, coupled with his proximity to the arts and urban trends, that is key to understanding his celebrity fame. He has most successfully managed to meld all sides of himself in his sartorial sensibilities, which have ranged from sequin-forward formalwear and a high-low approach to the Met Gala (who could forget the white Chucks?) to a standard, if somewhat pedestrian, approach to streetwear in general: joggers, Supreme tees, and a sneaker, albeit generally paired with a stunning (in aesthetic and sticker price) Cartier panther watch. At his most casual, even with the expensive adornments and fashion partnerships, Chalamet is fairly indistinguishable from the average recent NYU grad, clinging to life in lower Manhattan and a watered-down approach to Black urban trends.

The dual sides of Chalamet’s public persona—his proximity to an aesthetic edginess—helped build his fame and his fan base, but recent reactions to his SNL rap and to his dating life show the tenuousness of the tightrope that he must walk. The news that the actor is seemingly dating Kylie Jenner—yes, of the Kardashian clan—deconstructs that mirage of Chalamet as elevated ingenue and/or bohemian, hip-hop-loving cookout guest. A current scroll through Chalamet’s Instagram comments requires wading through waist-deep levels of malice, even now, months since the reported relationship came to light: “That family will be your downfall”; “I didn’t know you liked plastic so much”; “I REFUSE TO BELIEVE UR DATING KYLIE”; “your career will bomb for this hope plastic was worth it.” The level of vitriol is not merely irrational—it is also being fed by the media. Early reports in W Magazine asserted that “someone out there (Kris Jenner?) really wants us to believe this coupling is for real. Despite them both being very famous twentysomethings, they come from extremely different worlds”—a pointed choice of words that fueled rumors that this was a “PR relationship” (one of the most misused conspiracies in pop-culture discussions, next to “industry plant” and “woke mob”).

“Extremely different worlds”? If nothing else, Jenner and Chalamet share an affinity as young, white celebrities who are unsubtle about their interest in Black cultural aesthetics. It would also be prudent to remember that the famed Kid Cudi birthday party photo that featured Chalamet chucking up the peace sign next to Cudi, Kanye West, and Pete Davidson was taken by fellow A-list guest Kim Kardashian, Jenner’s sister; the alleged couple’s circles have encroached upon each other for years, even if it may not have been all that obvious to outsiders. Gone are the days when we could perpetuate the absurd urban legend that the Kardashian-Jenner family are bewitching sirens, leaving destruction and men helpless to their temptations in their wake. Treating Chalamet as a victim or a prop to be used is no less ridiculous. (He has faced these allegations before, with former girlfriend Lily-Rose Depp: “And then people are like, ‘This is a PR stunt.’ A PR stunt?!” he told Elle. “Do you think I’d want to look like that in front of all of you?!”) Fans’ active rejection of what likely may amount to his very real feelings—even if it is a fleeting romance, which he has every right to—shouldn’t prompt such an outsized reaction under the guise of protecting their favorite artist’s career interests.

In a 2018 GQ interview, Chalamet described his approach to acting roles as “less a transformation of character … and more capturing a feeling … a synchronization, a flow. Of being able to communicate by thought.” While he was referring to his actions on set, there’s a symbolism to the level of recoil his once-adoring public has had to Chalamet doing nothing more than simply existing as himself and going with the flow, as it were (the flow, of course, being highly curated celebrity). There’s something peculiar about certain fans’ open revulsion at Chalamet acting like many people his age do, as if he is supposed to embody somebody more mature than he has ever declared he was, merely because of the projects he has been attached to. Because he has played the tender teenager in Call Me by Your Name, the aching kindred soul in Little Women, the hurting son in Beautiful Boy, must he necessarily be held to the same expectations as the characters he plays?

This is part of a philosophical conversation about not just fandom but how the relationship between art and artist has continued to evolve under the gaze of today’s viewer, particularly when it comes to on-screen performances. Cultural commentators and fans alike increasingly use shorthand such as “such-and-such actor is playing themselves”—or, rather, what we believe is a heightened version of their personas, cobbled together from scraps of media and roles and assumptions—and it has completely blunted these distinctions over time. After the implication of actors such as Kevin Spacey, James Franco, and other accused perpetrators of misconduct in the #MeToo movement, backlash to any equivocation over separating the art from the artist based on moral grounds has misguidedly evolved into rendering the artist and their art inextricable on all levels—if an actor plays a specific kind of role, whether it be sweet, affected, disenchanted, devilish, charming, or erudite, it has somehow become insightful to their off-screen behavior as well, should they ever be mired in any sort of controversy or reproachable behavior. And if a socialite known for dating Black men crosses the threshold of someone known for their proximity to prestige films, all signs thusly indicate that their worlds cannot possibly collide. Strike me if you’ve heard this one before, but an artist’s ability to evoke a story is occasionally separate from their leisurely interests.

Ultimately, whether Chalamet’s alleged romance is “real” or not, or whether it has much lasting power, has very little relevance—what it does reveal, however, is the quickly constructed fan fictions we cling to, made of little more than viral movie clips and fan edits of curated moments and preferred versions of a celebrity. These twin acts of presumption and projection create a blinkered view of Chalamet, one wherein his relationship to Black cool is alternately trotted out as a party trick or dismissed as a minor inconvenience to be acknowledged semiannually at best, secondary to the evidently more enticing and satisfying narrative that is Chalamet as a sensitive, artistic soul—a conceit cobbled together largely from film reels. It would be wiser to accept Timmy Tim for who he is: a multidimensional individual, the quintessential result of New York’s finest handiwork, not the product of art-scene fantasies, for better or worse. Demanding otherwise is just committing to a narrative that erases him as a human in favor of crafting the version of him that you find most interesting.