Timothee Chalamet sinks teeth into cannibal flick ‘Bones and All’ and learns to love KISS

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As Timothee Chalamet continues his meteoric rise through Hollywood, there’s one thing he is surprised to see on his acting resume at age 26.

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“I didn’t think the facepaint-less KISS was ever going to be a part of my work, ever,” the Oscar nominee says chuckling in a video chat from Rome.

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But in Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, a road-trip horror movie about a pair of lovestruck cannibals, Chalamet rocking out to KISS’s Lick It Up gives the brutal drama a rare moment of levity.

“Honestly speaking, there’s a scene in Luca’s movie A Bigger Splash in which Ralph Fiennes is dancing (to the Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue) and I thought, ‘What the hell, Ralph gets to do it and I don’t?’ ”

Guadagnino’s adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ young adult novel centres on Maren (Waves’ Taylor Russell), a teenager who has been abandoned by her father (Andre Holland) over her propensity for eating human flesh. As she heads out in search of her mother, Maren dodges some of her kin (including a creepy guy played by Mark Rylance) before striking up a romantic relationship with a fellow “eater” named Lee (Chalamet).

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Ostracized from normal society, Maren and Lee decide to hit the road together in search of blood-soaked happiness in 1980s middle-America.

Since its world premiere at the 79th Venice Film Festival in September, where it received a rapturous 10-minute standing ovation, Bones and All has captivated audiences, winning the Silver Lion for best direction and scoring a best picture nom at the 2023 Independent Spirit Awards.

The cannibal romance reunites Chalamet with Guadagnino, who helped introduce the New Yorker to the world in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name. After that film helped launch Chalamet to superstardom, leading to his first Oscar nom and roles in last year’s Dune and an upcoming Willy Wonka prequel, the pair was eager to reteam again to tell yet another story of young love.

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“I was reading the script and when Lee appears on Page 45, I thought. ‘This is perfect for Timothee,’ ” Guadagnino, 51, says.

Not too long ago, the Italian filmmaker recalls watching Call Me By Your Name and being mesmerized by how young Chalamet looked in that movie.

“It was almost as if I was looking at another person,” he says.

“Because the characters are cannibals, I thought no one would go for that,” Chalamet, who also produces the art-house horror, says of their new collaboration.

“I was daunted and excited about it … when I knew Luca was at the helm, I thought this was something we had to do.”

On an early Friday morning the day before an overly enthusiastic crush of fans shut down the film’s Milan premiere, Chalamet and Guadagnino spoke more about the metaphorical resonance of the story and how KISS led to the actor’s newfound appreciation for stadium rock.

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Timothee, you’ve played a lot of outsiders and people on the fringes. What is about those types of characters that appeal to you?

Chalamet: “I feel like I relate to them deeply in some way, and I can’t say I’m consciously choosing these roles, but I felt in reading this that there was a wonderful, empathetic quality to both Maren and Lee that was keeping me up at night after I read it.”

When you’re eating people in the movie, what are you actually chowing down on?

Chalamet: “It was some kind of fruit roll-ups and cranberry (sauce) and general mush (laughs).”

Luca, what was it about the story that resonated with you?

Guadagnino: “When I got a script from Dave Kajganich, with whom I did two movies — A Bigger Splash and Suspiria — I couldn’t stop thinking about these beautiful, amazing characters. I was touched by a love story seen from this very specific perspective.”

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Timothee, the Lick It Up album marked a huge shift for KISS. Did you understand the importance of that record in the band’s career?

Chalamet: “I didn’t grow up in that era, so I’ll piss a lot of people off by saying that I fully get it. But I’ve done a deep dive on stadium rock or hair rock ’n’ roll. It started with this movie, and then it continued. I was at a bar in New York in the spring and on the jukebox there was a bunch of Bob Dylan that I was playing and then somebody was disgruntled about it and they went over to and proclaimed, ‘It’s time for some Motley Crue!’ There’s more to the story, but now I’m a Motley Crue fan.”

You’ve literally grown up in front of people. How have you found your sense of self under such an intense spotlight?

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Chalamet: “I always felt that expression in the arts, whether it was on stage or in the movies or as a really bad talent show act, was a relief. In another sense, I always felt that to be unsure of your footing was crucial to that. I’ve been lucky to have people like Luca in my life — people who are hugely successful, but also smart. People who aren’t successful for the wrong reasons and possess a super amount of talent. And, along with that, I have a really great family and friends.”

Luca, why did you set the movie in the 1980s?

Guadagnino: “I think that was David’s instinct when he wrote the script. The book is set in the ‘90s during (U.S. President Bill) Clinton’s era, but I felt — David and I — we were teenagers then so there was something sentimental about it.”

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Luca, how did the isolation we were all living through impact Bones and All?

Guadagnino: “Those were dire and difficult times for all of us. I lost my dad and I felt really very much abandoned and isolated. I didn’t think I needed to bring those feelings consciously to the screen, but if I see it now afterwards and have conversations about the movie I can see, yeah, there must have been a lot of that coming through my mind and our minds while we were making the movie. But we were also quite free out in the vastness of America.”

Chalamet: (Laughs) “They didn’t care about COVID … there was literally a gas station that said, ‘No masks allowed.’”

Timothee, you’re going to be mining some lighter elements in next year’s Wonka. What can we expect from that? Do you sing?

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Chalamet: “I try to sing in it (laughs), but it was a dream come true. I’m working with a director I was hugely inspired by — (Paddington’s) Paul King. Almost everything I’ve worked on I check in with Luca because he blessed me with a career, but I also so trust his taste. He and Tilda Swinton spoke so highly of Paul … I hope we did that character justice and getting to step into this other person’s worldview — Paul King’s — is just totally magical. Like Luca and Denis Villeneuve, it’s on that level but a totally different thing. And there are darker elements. You’ll see.”

Bones and All is now playing in theatres.

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