Timothée Chalamet says he spent a whopping six figures for his Saturday Night Live performance.
The 30-year-old actor made the revelation while speaking at London’s Prince Charles Cinema on Sunday (Feb. 1), sharing details with Love Actually filmmaker Richard Curtis of his negotiation with SNL creator, Lorne Michaels, to do double-duty as host and musical guest in Jan. 2025.
“I spent over six figures out of my pocket to do the SNL performance,” said Chalamet, per Variety. “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.’ But I refused to take no for an answer.”
Chalamet explained that the move was part of a broader effort to take creative control and reach audiences in unconventional ways, as seen in his press tours for A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme.
He continued, “This is the new way of doing stuff. I’m trying to reach audiences, you know. I don’t want to be in the pretentious in-crowd. Marty Supreme in America had the least frequent moviegoing audience this year — people that weren’t going to see everything. That’s my favorite feedback on the movie. So the most pretentious answer I could give you, which I actually honestly feel, is that it’s not marketing or promotion. That sounds like a gimmick, and this is not a gimmick. This is coming from my heart and my soul.”
Elsewhere in the Q&A session, Chalamet further explored his evolving outlook on how to market a film, saying that he doesn’t see it as marketing at all.
“Here’s the thing — this risks killing any mystery around it, but I really don’t look at it as promotion or marketing. I see myself as an artist expanding,” Chalamet explained. “And certainly the Zoom had a little bit of satire to it, but the initial video in the glass box, those [ping-pong ball] heads, I feel like I’m expressing myself. You know, a lot of people want to be told what to say, how to say it and where to stand — I’m talking on the acting front. Also, people don’t want to misstep. I feel like I’ve got the keys, I’ve got the right attitude, I’ve got the juice.”
Whatever he’s doing, it’s working. Earlier this month, Marty Supreme became A24’s highest grossing film ever at the domestic box office.
