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We all know what Timothée Chalamet is capable of as an actor, but what about his marketing skills?
Often described as one of the best performers of his generation, Timothée Chalamet takes acting very seriously, and he has no qualms about showing it—perhaps to the chagrin of his contemporaries.
“I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” said the 30-year-old thespian as he accepted the SAG award for best actor last year, becoming the youngest person ever to do so.
Chalamet first stepped into the limelight with his subtle, heartbreaking performance as Elio in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name (2017). Since then, the world has been equally captivated by his acting prowess and his much-publicised romance with Kylie Jenner. It certainly seems we can’t get enough of him.
Reading about his rise to stardom is like witnessing a prophecy fulfilling itself in real time, like in Dune: Part Two (2024), when Chalamet’s Atreides proclaims himself the Lisan al-Gaib, the chosen one foretold.
Marketing supreme
His latest, Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie and distributed by A24, has been the subject of much discussion on social media, partly due to its groundbreaking marketing campaign, with Chalamet in particular going out of his way to promote the film.
Posted to his Instagram account on 15 November of last year, an 18-minute video captioned “video93884728.mp4” shows Chalamet bouncing wacky ideas for advertising the movie off a bunch of A24 marketing executives.
Using neologisms like “frutionising” and “schwap”, Chalamet comes across as a self-important, out-of-touch-with-reality actor who thinks he knows better than the marketing team in the room.
But something is definitely off here. As it turns out, the Zoom call is an elaborate marketing stunt to help sell the movie. The video’s self-referentiality is not lost on his fans, making it an instant viral classic in online circles.
From staging a “leaked” Zoom call to collaborating with underground rapper EsDeeKid from Liverpool, Chalamet understands how online virality helps sell movies in the era of declining movie theatres. His guerrilla-style marketing strategy shows the gumption and willingness to ‘lock in’ as hard as possible. (‘Lock in’ is Gen-Z slang for ‘commit fully to a goal’.) But one may wonder whether it’s just another performance.
All the world’s a stage
In an interview with IndieWire published on 19 December 2025, when asked about whether he would be more careful in boasting about how good he was as an actor, Chalamet answered:
“This is in the spirit of Marty, and I feel like this is ultimately an original film at a time when original movies aren’t really put out. It’s a movie about the pursuit of a dream. I’m leaving it on the field. Whether it’s the merch or the Zoom or the media appearances, I’m trying to get this out in the biggest way possible. In the spirit of Marty Mauser.”
His aversion to bashfulness squarely places him in the same tradition as Joaquin Phoenix, whose antics have in the past irritated the general public. When greatness announces itself, and not by someone else, hostility and resentment often ensue.
But why do we expect actors to be humble in the first place? Chalamet’s self-mythologisation, similar to that of Bob Dylan (whom he portrays in the 2024 biopic A Complete Unknown), reveals a set of social expectations placed upon such public figures.
It also reveals the extent to which some actors would go to get people into movie theatres. With news of Netflix’s acquisition offer to Warner Bros., streaming is slowly dominating global markets and putting movie theatres at risk. If Chalamet’s marketing tactics are part of a layered performance, then they are brilliant.
Ping pong dreams
Set in the 1950s, Marty Supreme follows Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), an ambitious shoe salesman working in New York, as he struggles to become the best the world of table tennis has ever seen. Beset by relationship and financial problems, Marty has to decide whether the uphill battle is worth losing what he holds dear.
The film is loosely based on the life of Martin “Marty” Reisman, an American table tennis champion. But in a typical Safdien fashion, the film turns it into a story about a man verging on self-destruction if it means there’s a slim chance of achieving greatness.
Although Marty Supreme doesn’t have an official release date for Thailand yet, Thai fans of Chalamet are already talking about it, making jokes about how it’s the only movie in their Oscar predictions not to have a wide release.
Unfortunately, we might have to be patient for just a little longer. But like the table tennis hustler, we understand that greatness takes time.
