If you pay attention to film discourse spaces, among the myriad comments and criticisms you’ve likely heard these last few years about the modern industry (as it exists in Hollywood at least) is that we don’t have movie stars anymore. It has been bolstered by figures in the industry -Quentin Tarantino and Anthony Mackie are just a few of the names who have brought it up, the latter in spite of being the lead actor in one of the major blockbusters of the year so far. But the average person on the street doesn’t know who Anthony Mackie is by name, even casual moviegoers probably don’t. Few people are making decisions to see a movie he is in based on his presence in it. He is a Hollywood actor but he is not a Movie Star.
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What is a Movie Star? Well, it is more than just the actor who leads a movie. Since the early years of cinema, movie stars have been public personalities functioning low-key as symbols of the medium, either by their own volition or that of their popularity. In the early days of cinema they were often groomed into these roles by the studios, who would pluck them for their charisma or their good looks, build brands and identities around them (sometimes even changing their names) so they could be better salespeople for the business of movies. This cult of personality style worked for stars like John Gilbert, Clara Bow, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and Gloria Swanson -who became some of the biggest names of the 1920s. During the classic Hollywood age, the movie star continued to be a valuable commodity -the personas and styles associated with certain stars becoming a primary selling-point for their various movies. And because of that, these stars could bring audiences with them to films in a variety of subjects and genres. I doubt a lot of gangster movie fans would be naturally inclined towards a biographic musical film about a patriotic Broadway producer. But with James Cagney at the front of that movie, they did, and Yankee Doodle Dandy was a hit. Greta Garbo, an icon of melodramas, made a comedy for the first time in her career with Ninotchka (sold on the tagline “Garbo Laughs”), and her audience not only migrated over but it recovered a slumping career, with new audiences invested enough in her to be curious by this new direction.
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Well-cultivated star power was a central currency in Hollywood for several decades; and even the emergence of alternative focal points for movies in the 1960s and 70s, like directors, genres, and styles -stars remained a major priority of the industry, and though not so controlled by outside forces of studios and producers as before, their brand identities still became critical components of movie marketing, and often even dictated what kinds of movies got made and what direction Hollywood would move in. To some extent individual stars could still be relied on to bring in audiences to movies they might not otherwise consider. Dustin Hoffman catapulted a movie about cross-dressing (at a time of widespread gender identity and sexual repression) to box office glory, Tom Cruise made a legal drama a hit, Bruce Willis allowed a quirky French sci-fi flick to enter the cultural zeitgeist. The acquisition of stars by creative filmmakers was something of a priority in getting the budget considerations necessary or the wider reach they desired. And Hollywood was a fascinating, diverse space as a result. In part because of the star system, the movies people talked about could vary wildly in genre, audience, and style.
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By the late 2000s though, that started to change with the gradual emergence of movie franchises connected to a story or character already well-known as a lucrative spring of success. And in the 2010s, as the superhero era really kicked into gear, the star system started to fade demonstrably. Movie stars were less and less able to sell movies on their own fame and identity and were also becoming fewer. There were plenty of famous actors still of course, but comparatively less household names -looking at the folks launched to prominence by Marvel, there were plenty of people who knew the actors behind Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, or Black Widow, maybe even knew them by name -but didn’t actually care for them as actors. Nobody followed Scarlett Johansson from the MCU to Lucy or Rough Night let alone Marriage Story, or Chris Evans to Snowpiercer or Gifted. Even Robert Downey Jr., who had been a minor star before Marvel and had the clearest brand identity of the bunch, couldn’t get anyone to watch The Judge or Dr. Doolittle; and of course Chris Hemsworth had a sea of failed attempts to capitalize on his sudden fame -Tom Holland more recently seems to be following in his footsteps.
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At the same time, the older batch of movie stars have not been able to open movies the way they used to. Brad Pitt, one of the biggest box office draws of the 90s is certainly no longer guaranteed an audience, the most wholesome star of that era Tom Hanks has not enjoyed near the same following as he used to either, and Matt Damon might get a fluke like The Martian, but more often films like Ford v. Ferrari or Air sill sputter. And all of this has been much worse on the women stars of bygone eras who, like Nicole Kidman almost solely get by on indie projects, or like Julia Roberts just semi-retire altogether. The one exception often pointed to is Tom Cruise, who molded his own brand into the spare franchises he has been involved in like Jack Reacher and most prominently Mission: Impossible and Top Gun -but he’s not impervious, as The Mummy and American Made proved. Audiences have drifted away from movie stars in a way that has partly been manufactured by the modern studios, training them through various tactics to invest more in brands and characters than individual creatives. And perhaps there is some argument that it is right to tear down the star system, the cult of celebrity -but there is a slippery slope in what it has been replaced with as we have seen evidence of, and there is I believe value in people rather than products moving the needle of popular cinema.
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Which is why I appreciate and am modestly optimistic about Timothée Chalamet, the bright young actor with the mysterious aura and boyish good looks who is the surest star in the making of his generation. And I mean a real star as in someone who is recognizable on his name alone and with the cultural capital to pull in audiences and get certain movies made. He is not the only one -there is a crop of younger millennial and older Gen-Z actors likewise showing signs of this quality: Margot Robbie, Zendaya, Glen Powell, arguably Florence Pugh, Paul Mescal, Sydney Sweeney, and Jenna Ortega as well (hopefully Mikey Madison can make the list too); but certainly he seems to be at the forefront of it. There are Timothée Chalamet lookalike contests, he's become an unconventional fashion icon, a conventional sex symbol, a meme, and has penetrated the popular consciousness. Most importantly his movies these last few years have been doing very well. In fairness, he has yet to have another original movie take off since his breakout in Call Me By Your Name. But since the Chalamet train fully kicked into gear with Dune in 2021, his box office imprint has been tangible. His casting likely carried the receipts for Wonka and you can't convince me A Complete Unknown would have been near as successful if it weren't Chalamet in the lead role, drawing in scores of Gen-Z audiences to a movie about a Boomer musician with frankly very little cultural stock for them.
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Why him? In some regard, it's not a very difficult thing to ascertain -he is a young white guy with very conventionally attractive features -dark eyes, shaggy hair, a quiet voice, all very becoming of a teen idol. And his twin roles of 2017 that broke him through the industry, Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird, exploited that image very well -mysterious, emotional, stylish, tender but sexual, cool and cool-headed, a teen girl's dream boyfriend. But while this archetype stalled a career like Robert Pattinson's a decade earlier, that didn't happen for Chalamet who had the advantage of these being individual (and independent) artistic movies, setting him in a different class that he also only fit into too well. He radiated a kind of art student ennui in addition to his good looks, and it helped of course that his very French name lent an insinuation of culture, backed up by his background growing up in both New York and France. This carried over into less successful subsequent endeavours like Beautiful Boy and A Rainy Day in New York, maybe reaching an apex with Little Women, matching these qualities with the air of sophistication that comes with playing a classic literary romantic character (he is for the record quite good in the role for a host of other reasons).
But through these movies, he never seemed interested in pursuing the conventional track for someone of his generation at this time in Hollywood. While several of his contemporaries fairly quickly got themselves scooped up by the MCU or some other major franchise off of what buzz they might have generated before, Chalamet remained in the indie space and seemed not to have those ambitions (he does have great ambitions of a different kind, as has subsequently been made clear). More than fronting a tent-pole blockbuster behemoth, he appeared to be far more interested in the calibre of the material (insofar as how it would challenge him) and of his collaborators in front of and behind the scenes.
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It is why when he did dip his toes into a big budget project with franchise potential it was for Denis Villeneuve. And Dune was just a very different kind of blockbuster as well, both a known and unknown quantity for the vast majority of audiences. It had less in common with any recent superhero or Star Wars or 80s franchise reboot flick, and more with something like The Lord of the Rings. It’s success certainly wasn’t predicated on Chalamet, but he had to have been a factor in bringing in that audience he had acquired, and with its massive success he gained a whole new following as well. The Chalamet Sensation has really only metastasized in these last couple years post-Dune when he has more or less officially joined the ranks of the A-listers. And while his fame has been dismissed or diminished in some corners, his name alone becoming a punchline for those who find anything that doesn’t sound perfectly American funny or just equate a general theme of pretentiousness with something even vaguely French; he has backed up that status with public charisma and little controversy. To say nothing of his genuinely good acting, which is not always a qualifier where movie stars are concerned.
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Yet what makes Chalamet’s rise as a potential resuscitation of the movie star personality, what makes it genuinely good and promising is the smart and responsible way he harnesses it for the roles he chooses, the collaborators he finds, and the movies he makes. He’s on record as reiterating a piece of advice given to him by Leonardo DiCaprio while making Don’t Look Up to not do superhero movies. It’s meaningful, considering DiCaprio is probably the closest analogue to Chalamet’s type of fame, and he appears to be following his elder’s model well -his next movie is going to be with Josh Safdie, and it is quite possible it crosses into the mainstream on his back. We will have to see how it pans out. But in spite of being firmly part of that industry mainstream now, he is not interested in the typical Hollywood expectations for his career. Perhaps he summed it up best when he became the youngest winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award a few months ago, declaring to some controversy and allegations of egotism that he strives to be one of the greats, along the lines of Marlon Brando or Daniel Day-Lewis. You could argue the reputational wisdom of making such a statement, the audacity of comparing himself to acting titans; but the main interesting point to me is his hyping of acting as the key point there. Day-Lewis never was himself a box office draw, not revered for how successful he was but his dedication to the craft. The fact that Chalamet is more interested in the craft, and exploring, refining, and challenging his own capabilities through it is very refreshing; and that doing that as a very popular movie star could well provoke a new movie star movement to be focused a little more on substance, and consequently lead to more of it in Hollywood films.
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This may be wishful thinking, I concede. But I’m always encouraged when I see actors like Chalamet or other young folks, whether in interviews, or Letterboxd press spots, or Criterion Closet appearances, emphasizing what appears to be a genuine interest in cinema and their craft -who don’t seem to just be trying to pursue fame. And the idea of those people amassing the cache to influence what studios make, what projects get bigger budgets and more exposure, speaks I think to signs of a positive future for the industry. It also gives me a little added faith in Gen-Z more broadly -the kids who grew up in this pretty dour era for Hollywood dominated by a lot of homogeneity in the blockbuster scene and little apart from those movies being able to break out. General audiences may not be the same as the people who work in that business for a living, perhaps a lot of them are still in that space of the MCU and other I.P. franchise endeavours defining what cinema is for them -as the studios have mandated. But Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has just crossed 160 million at the box office (could Michael B. Jordan also be a real movie star?), demonstrating that there is an appetite for freshness with moviegoers, much as the studio heads may want to pretend there isn’t. And an appetite I think also for new movie stars to follow and shepherd interesting projects. We want to see the variety of contexts that Anya Taylor-Joy can work in, the range that Austin Butler can express, the distinct modes of dedication that Saoirse Ronan or Daniel Kaluuya will immerse themselves in, and the means with which Timothée Chalamet will push to achieve that ambition of greatness. It is exciting!
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Which yes, is something strange to feel about the world of celebrity. To be invested in propping up a system built on ego and a considerable degree of manufactured identity that is very demonstrably toxic in many ways. In a perfect world, movie stars shouldn't have to matter to push the art of cinema forward. We just happen to live in one where, for the time being, they are preferable to corporations. At the same time there isn't anything wrong with appreciating the talents of very good artists, wanting to see their fruits realized, how they are utilized and expanded. They are of course the faces of the movies we see, the effect of those movies is in part dependent on them. When we like an actor’s movies and what they bring to them, it is natural to wish for them to succeed, and make more of those experiences. The filmography of an actor is usually way more compelling in its breadth and versatility than any franchise company or even the careers of a lot of directors. And many of the young potential movie stars I have cited are folks who have demonstrated both a strength with their craft and a certain charisma to grip their audience, and I hope for the best from them. Because movie stars are also public-facing ambassadors for cinema, where their directors remain behind the scenes. Timothée Chalamet and those who are coming up on his heels, have been playing that role well in spite of and in some cases in direct defiance of the corporate Hollywood machine.
I don't know if the movie star will really come back. For all I know Chalamet's next movie could be a massive flop and any of this expressed optimism will suffer a setback. But it matters that consequential voices like his are there where they seemed to be missing for a good decade or so, to at least foster an image -a star to shoot for perhaps- of a better, stronger Hollywood driven by the power of people and personalities rather than committee and algorithm.
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