When Timothée Chalamet performed three Bob Dylan songs on Saturday Night Live last year - this was during his promotional tour for A Complete Unknown, the movie in which he played Dylan - the assumption was that the show had secured itself a bit of a coup.
However, the actor has now revealed that this isn’t quite true. In fact, Chalamet had to put his hand in his pocket in order to make it happen.
The subject came up during a recent chat with writer and director Richard Curtis, which was filmed for Variety at London’s Prince Charles Cinema over the weekend. Curtis was quizzing Chalamet on the unique and sometimes unconventional ways in which he chooses to promote his movies. For Marty Supreme, his most recent film, he turned the Las Vegas Sphere into a ping-pong ball and staged a Zoom meeting in which he discussed marketing options with his team.
Reflecting on his Saturday Night Live experience, Chalamet said: “I spent over six figures out of my pocket to do the SNL performance. [Producer] Lorne Michaels said, ‘Hey, do you want to host SNL?’ I said, ‘Yeah, can I do the music?’ He’s like, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Alright, I’m not doing it.’ He said, ‘OK, do the music.’”
Chalamet didn’t get into specifics about what he spent the money on, but said that he “refused to take no for an answer,” and did indeed end up hosting and performing on the same show. Entertainment Weekly has since reported that the actor covered production expenses for his musical performances, which would have included paying band members (one of whom was James Blake) and building sets. These would typically be funded by an artist's record company.
You get the sense that Chalamet was happy to do it, though. He says that he doesn’t see activities like this as promotion or marketing, but as “an artist expanding”.
