Timothee Chalamet recently reunited with Interstellar director Christopher Nolan at a special IMAX 70mm screening of the 2014 sci-fi epic in Los Angeles. The event, held at AMC Universal Citywalk, marked a nostalgic moment for both.
In a video shared by the Nolan Archives, Timothee interviewed Nolan before the screening, calling Interstellar his “personal favourite” among his own filmography. “Though my role is not enormous in Interstellar — I think I was number 12 on the call sheet — this film came to me at a time in life, in my career, where things were certainly not set yet,” Timothee said. “And it’s remained my favourite project I’ve ever been in.”
Nolan reveals what he didn’t like about Timothee’s scene
During the discussion, Nolan recalled directing Timothee for one particular sequence — the emotional “messages from home” scene. The filmmaker admitted that he initially wasn’t fond of Timothee’s approach.
“When you were filming the messages from home, there was a particular thing where you were hitting a dark tone,” Nolan said. “It felt too much for me. I didn’t particularly like it. I told you about it, and you went ahead and did whatever the f*** you wanted and carried on. But I was like, ‘He knows what he wants to do and has an idea.’”
Nolan added that Timothee’s commitment to his choices impressed him in hindsight. “You had planned what you wanted to do and didn’t want to abandon that on a casual whim for me,” he said. “You wanted to test that and challenge that and see if I kept coming back, which I didn’t. I found a logic to that in the edit suite.”
A shared love for Interstellar
Timothee, who played Tom, the son of Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper, said the film deeply shaped his early career. He recalled initially believing the story would focus on a father-son relationship. “When I got the part, I Googled the project. The original story was about a father and his son, so I thought, ‘Oh man, I made it!’” he laughed.
Nolan, who described Interstellar as “deeply emotional” and “about family and humanity,” said the film’s reception was initially “a little sniffy,” but it has since become one of his most celebrated works. “Over the last 10 years it’s become Interstellar. It’s a wonderful thing… the project seems to touch people more and more year after year,” he said.
As for Timothee, the actor confessed that Interstellar “makes me weep more than anything,” a sentiment many of us can relate to.
