Forget dignity and restraint. Timothée Chalamet’s “Marty Supreme” campaign is a Gen Z-fueled spectacle that has the academy baffled and fans divided, redefining what it means to be a movie star in the internet age.
Timothée Chalamet is the first Oscar contender to obscure his face with a scarf and hoodie and jump into a rap video with an artist who once sparked conspiracies about being him—a jarring contrast to the soft, jilted loverboy persona that made him the internet’s perennial white boy of the month. In “4 Raws (Remix)” by EsDeeKid, Chalamet raps, “my life is an opera, look at the Oscars, look at the groupies, look at the movies” and “tryna stack a hundred million, girl got a billion.” It’s a brazen display of confidence: he knows his acting is impressive, he’s rich, he’s dating Kylie Jenner, and he has enough swag to appear in a rap video.
That was just one of many unconventional moves in Chalamet’s promotional tour for Marty Supreme, his film about a 1950s ping-pong prodigy whose “dream big” ethos makes him a malevolent force. Chalamet’s own ambition feels indistinguishable from his character’s—he’s so committed to winning his first Oscar that his antics blur into performance art. He appeared in a sketch with Druski, went live on Instagram with a giant ping-pong ball on his head, advocated for a giant orange blimp bearing the movie’s name to fly over Los Angeles, and basically appeared everywhere one could make an appearance. He dropped hints that he worked very hard on this performance, refused an ass double in a spanking scene, and spent years secretly mastering table tennis.
He’s also frequently misstepped. As Oscar voting closed, his offhand comments about how difficult it is to get audiences to engage with ballet and opera were shunned by the masses and those artistic communities. The backlash was immediate, adding to a narrative that Chalamet’s bravado can read as entitlement.
Erik Anderson, editor in chief of AwardsWatch, describes Chalamet’s Oscars push as one-of-a-kind. We’ve all heard of method acting, but Chalamet is pioneering method campaigning—fully embodying the promotional role as if it were a character. Anderson notes that the promotion for Marty Supreme was “like teenage Timmy—absolutely bonkers, profane, very Gen Z and music video-oriented. It skewed extremely young.” Then, as Chalamet started winning awards at the Critics’ Choice Awards and Golden Globes, he did a complete 180, wearing simpler suits and bringing Kylie Jenner (though never naming her) to events.
But Chalamet’s chances of actually winning the Oscar seem to be dwindling—he lost expected trophies at both the BAFTAs and SAG’s Actor Awards. No one doubts his talent, but every loss is blamed on his bravado. The internet seems to find a new reason each week to label him entitled, dismissive, or not serious enough. This divergence from the babyfaced, uber-talented actor playbook—most famously executed by Leonardo DiCaprio, who lost five Oscars before finally winning—has sparked fierce debate.
Yet, the moviegoing masses don’t mind the eccentricity. Marty Supreme has become indie studio A24’s biggest box office success, earning over $147 million worldwide. Zillennial movie stars, of which there are few, don’t necessarily have to worry about seeming cringe. Though it might blow his Oscar chances, Chalamet is reinventing stardom for someone who grew up with internet access. “Awards season used to be about seriousness and restraint, and Best Actor campaigns used to seem really controlled and about gravity,” says celebrity publicist Tracy Lamourie. “I think what we’re seeing is Chalamet is replacing that with not only public confidence but competitive confidence, which feels like a generational shift.”
Chalamet doesn’t need to win an Oscar—his three acting nominations and presence in eight Best Picture nominees by age 30 already cement his legacy—but he clearly wants that little gold man. Anderson finds it refreshing that Chalamet is honest about his ambition, mirroring his character. Chalamet himself has described being in “Marty Mode” during his SAG Award win for portraying Bob Dylan last year, delivering a now-famous speech: “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness… I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight. I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there.”
This campaign—where Chalamet hosted and performed on Saturday Night Live, did viral interviews with internet personalities like Brittany Broski and Nardwuar, and paid homage to Bob Dylan’s stranger red carpet moments—started even while he was technically campaigning for A Complete Unknown, where he was never a frontrunner. His “strange viral behavior” was an early signal of this new playbook.
Fans who pledged loyalty to Chalamet during his Greta Gerwig era—Little Women, Lady Bird—or as the Oscar-nominated jilted teen in Call Me by Your Name might still cling to that soft, artistic loverboy persona. But longtime supporters know that, despite his French features and waifish build, Chalamet is a bit of a bro. He loves the Knicks, crushed it on SportsCenter, and is dating arguably the most iconic influencer of a generation. And who could forget his rap persona, Lil Timmy Tim?
Chalamet’s career is no lark—he’s ridiculously hardworking and at the top of his game. He’s made $2 billion at the box office and has the greatest living directors raving about his talent. His “real hooper mentality” mirrors that of an elite athlete, which makes his unconventional promotional tactics feel like a natural extension of his competitive drive.
As entertainment feels increasingly bland, loaded with rebooted IP, and AI threatens the industry, someone unpredictable like Chalamet who breaks the mold feels like a breath of fresh air. Fans see it and love it. Others find it annoying—some say he’s going to yap his way out of an Oscar, or that he’s being a narcissist. Plenty note that men can get away with going method and being annoying while women can’t, making his campaign feel exhausting.
Could Chalamet win an Oscar?
Brazen campaigning aside—it worked for Melissa Leo once—Chalamet is currently the Best Actor frontrunner, a remarkable feat given he’s up against beloved figures like Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael B. Jordan. If he wins, he’d defy the Oscars’ longstanding bias against young men, nicknamed “Slap the stud.” The youngest Best Actor winner was Adrien Brody at 30 for The Pianist. “If Timothee were to win, he would be doing something impressive and breaking from tradition in the eyes of the academy,” says Marcus Jones, awards editor at IndieWire.
One point in Chalamet’s favor: Marty Supreme landed well with the academy, earning nine Oscar nominations though it’s not favored elsewhere. Jones explains that the academy sometimes rewards a film with one award, and Chalamet is the sole acting nominee. No one can argue he doesn’t completely crush it.
Has he already won?
Was the aura gamble—embracing his most over-the-top, weird-kid tendencies—worth winning the box office battle but losing the awards season war? “I think [winning the Oscar] is the ultimate goal, but it’s just one trophy in the grand scheme of his career,” Jones says. “He’s been very smart about choosing his roles, and I think that just will continue.”
Even if this isn’t his year, Chalamet isn’t running out of chances. While promoting Marty Supreme, he shaved his head for Dune: Part Three—the third entry in a series that’s both a box office and critical darling—reminding everyone his future is as bright as the desert sun on Arakkis.
By making moves that go viral and dating one of the biggest influencers in the world, Chalamet puts his cultural fluency on display. He’s not trying to be a celebrity who exists outside the internet. There’s no such thing. “I think that makes him a new kind of cultural figure, and in this case, it really makes him culturally unavoidable. It makes new audiences sit up and pay attention,” Lamourie says. “It really is about the transition between generations. He’s positioning himself as the first millennial movie star who understands both credible film, arthouse credibility and also the culture of the algorithm that we live in in the modern era of social media.”
Will the academy love that? Probably not—yet. But he’ll likely win them over one day, and we’ll all look back on how Timothée Chalamet became the first zillennial movie star.
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