Timothée Chalamet and the Art of the Press Tour

The greatest trick Timothée Chalamet ever pulled was making the world believe that A Complete Unknown's press tour was unplanned, organic and impulsive. It's easy to believe, since his movements are so uncommon. What other actor crashes a look-alike contest, goes on College GameDay, and sits down with a generational talent at the British Film Institute? Even when he does the usual press tour stops like interviews and premiers, he does them in a way that attracts attention, as we'll discuss. Chalamet is attached as a producer to A Complete Unknown, and he's moving like his rent depends on this movie's financial success.

“I look at it like this, this is my inner Tom Cruise, where I want movies to be seen…At a time where, maybe, Hollywood or moviemaking has got a perception of, like, sometimes being out of touch or something, or definitely like awards-type movies, I want, especially a movie about Bob Dylan, I want, in all the movies I work on, that’s why I did Dune that’s why I did Wonka, and I’m proud that those movies, I know I’m not supposed to pat myself on the back, but those movies were big, you know, like in the movie industry or the movie business, brick and mortar theatres, they don’t do the business they once did. Some of that’s inevitable because of streaming, but I want to put my best foot forward. You got to give back to the industry that gave to you, that’s really my M.O. And that’s why I’m here… that’s why you can’t be the reclusive figure that Bob Dylan or Daniel Day Lewis or these guys were because, it’s not about the bottom line, but the attention isn’t guaranteed the way it used to be.” – Timothée Chalamet during his interview with Theo Von

The hardest challenge Chalamet faced when promoting a Bob Dylan biopic was how to get the younger generation to care about Dylan. Although a legend of our parents' generation, to modern ears, Dylan can be obtuse, nasally and concerned about current events of a different time (the Vietnam War, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, etc.). Unable to sit every teenager down to listen to Blonde on Blonde, Chalamet went for the next best thing – using his celebrity to get in front of as many late-teens and early-20s kids as possible to make them aware of his new movie.

I think Chalamet, this time around, was more focused on appealing to younger men, as he knows he's every girl's favourite anemic sex symbol. So, he started getting in front of the youth to make himself more relatable and create a fraternal feeling toward A Complete Unknown.

In October, he crashed his own look-alike contest in New York, where over one thousand people attended, police were called to disperse the event and at least one arrest was made. The grand prize of the contest was $50 and a store-bought trophy. This made nationwide headlines, appearing in the Associated Press and on CNN.

Chalamet also visited multiple college campuses, including Vanderbilt, University of Minnesota (which Bob Dylan attended for one year) and University of Texas. While at UT, he attended a Longhorns game with Matthew McConaughey and went on College GameDay alongside Pat McAffee and Nick Saban. He was the only “analyst” to correctly predict Ohio's upset win over Miami (Ohio) in the MAC Championship. This sparked a plethora of memes calling him college football's Lisan al Gaib. These college visits were accompanied by Instagram photo dumps to his 19.3 million followers. To continue with his artistic aesthetic, the photo dumps are full of blurry, grainy, sideways pictures that only added cool points to Chalamet's already acclaimed personality.

Continuing on his social media, five days ago, he posted a seven-minute, one-take music video (of sorts) for Dylan's “Visions of Johanna." The footage feels lo-fi and spontaneous. It's just after sunrise on a cold, New York morning. Chalamet, sporting a New York Yankees leather jacket, performs an interpretive dance while singing along to this quintessential Dylan track. The comments under the video are nearly all positive, with one viewer summarizing the the actor as a “quirked up white boy on his indie folk type shyt.”

Along with these unique promotions, there are also his interviews. His interview choices are a mix of classic publicity and more unorthodox choices, and it's the latter where he's finding the most success. At time of writing, his most viewed interview from this press tour is his hour-and-a-half chat with Theo Von. Von, a famous comedian in his own right, became even more famous this past year when he interviewed President Donald Trump (where the comedian talked about how cocaine turned him into an owl) and getting a shoutout from Dana White during Trump's victory speech on election night. Politics aside, Von is famous with 20-somethings due to his quick-witted humour, gleeful ignorance and his ability to skate the line between politically correct and offensive.

Chalamet went even more Internet niche when he did an interview with Brittany Broski, a YouTube personality with over two million subscribers who is known for her Gen Z sense of humour. In this interview, Broski refers to Chalamet as an NPC before Chalamet names his three favourite albums: Bringing It All Back Home, The Dark Side of the Moon, and Souljaboytellem.com.

To a lesser extent, Chalamet is still appealing to his base audience – those that love him from his earlier work. He did this through the aforementioned appearance at the look-alike contest and, even more so, when he reunited with Saoirse Ronan in London. The two former co-stars, who worked together on Lady Bird and Little Women, met up in front of a live audience to reminisce and talk about their Oscar-contending movies (Ronan stars in The Outrun).

Chalamet knows he needs to focus on showing the new generation Dylan, because there's no pleasing actual Dylan fans. Those old timers were the same ones that hated when he went electric. But, as fate would have it, he received the best endorsement he could to win over the real Dylan fans of the 1960s – an X post from Dylan himself:

Chalamet also uses his influence as a major male fashion icon to promote this movie. His little moustache made waves when it first debuted earlier this year. And, as we've gotten closer to A Complete Unknown's release and his public appearances became more frequent, we were treated to all sorts of style highlights. It's no secret that this man is willing to take fashion risks, as he's the one who went with a backless top for the Bones and All premier at the Venice Film Festival. When he wore that in 2022, Sam Schube for GQ wrote, “There's nothing in menswear quite like a Timothée Chalamet promotional run.”

A Complete Unknown's promotional run has had a number of sartorial talking points. There was his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where Chalamet wore an insane fit. He paired baggy, pinstriped pants with a white button-down that was covered in black graphics, a blue button-down work jacket and, to top it all off, he wrapped a chunky, yellow sweater-turned-scarf multiple times around his neck.

Then there was the Los Angeles premier for A Complete Unknown where Chalamet looked nicely dressed but more reserved than usual – until one saw what he had in his hand. It was none other than a Tusk Mammoth Beyblade. Yes, a Beyblade, as in the same Beyblades that were cool when I was in the fifth grade. I'd heard that Beyblades were still popular, as my friend's adolescent son still plays with them, but never did I imagine I'd see them represented on the red carpet in 2024.

If that wasn't enough, at the New York City premier, Chalamet decided to switch it up entirely and cosplay Dylan's look from the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, sporting a blonde wig with a grey beanie and scarf. If you're thinking to yourself that he just dresses like this to gain attention, you are absolutely correct. And nobody in modern Hollywood is doing a better job at gaining positive attention than Chaly.

The final step to a successful Chalamet press tour is to always promote your next movie. In a November 2023 cover article for GQ, Chalamet was supposed to promote Wonka and Dune: Part Two. The article was titled “Timothée Chalamet Goes Electric.” In the article, when not discussing Wonka and Dune, the young actor goes on about his next project, a Bob Dylan biopic. Now, fast forward a year, and we are days away from A Complete Unknown's full release. And, as he does press for this movie, he goes on about his next movie, Marty Supreme, which is directed by Josh Safdie. Coincidentally, last week we received news that Marty Supreme is slated for a Christmas 2025 release. I guess next year will be another Merry Chalymas. Thus, the hype train has already begun for Chalamet's next movie before we've all even seen A Complete Unknown.

All of this will be for nothing if A Complete Unknown flops. Given Chalamet's star power, I doubt it will. But it faces stiff competition, opening against Babygirl and Nosferatu. Has Chalamet done enough to convince the younger generation that they should care not just about him but about Bob Dylan? During his well-orchestrated press tour, he's admits to being a proud artist, a “theatre kid” as he calls it, and that shows in everything he does. Not just in how he acts, but also how he promotes himself, which is an art within itself.

I'm sure that, after Christmas, Chalamet will disappear from our screens again, appearing to do the Oscar press run and for Oscar night and then disappearing into the dust for the rest of 2025. Then, we'll have to wait until next Christmas when Marty Supreme drops and Chalamet returns to flip the whole idea of a press circuit up on its head again.