By his understanding that movie stars are not meant to be relatable, but watched, Timothée Chalamet has revived the art of the movie star. His understanding is highlighted in the Marty Supreme press tour. New Hollywood is so saturated with nepo babies that it is difficult to identify a real malemovie star—the hype distracts us.
The era of stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, who are unabashedly exclusive and unavailable to their fans, has given way to social media-friendly performers who seem engineered to be pleasant, marketable and easily forgotten. They go viral for a while but rarely linger to the cultural zeitgeist.
Stars now have become too accessible—this bores us.
With this change, actors are groomed to be brands rather than people. The result is an industry full of interchangeable male leads like Glen Powell and Tom Blyth, who despite being leading men, are neither interesting nor cool.
Hollywood wants us to be satisfied with content creators, not real movie stars. Through boring press tours, rehearsed interviews and social media, Hollywood has changed the product it is telling us to buy.
The Marty Supreme (2025) press tour was an example of a classic Hollywood pre-show. It was inescapable online before it even reached theatres. This was not because of the plot or any off-set scandals, but because Timothée Chalamet turned its promo into a one-man marketing blitz. From the bright orange promo blimp to the brain rot chants— “Marty Supreme Christmas Day, Marty Supreme Christmas Day!”—to the jacket every celebrity seems to be caught wearing, Chalamet has successfully revived the movie star.
Throughout his career, Chalamet has been carefully crafting an image that relies on exclusivity. He rarely posts on Instagram and almost always dates nepo babies that he meets at exclusive events like the Met Gala. His prominence has successfully cultivated an image of grandeur for the star.
This grandeur is what separates Chalamet from his peers and allows him to be seen as a movie star instead of a brand.
Every memorable movie star needs a marketable scandal—and Chalamet delivers. In 2020, Chalamet was briefly linked to Eiza Gonzalez and the two were photographed having an intimate moment in a hot tub while on vacation. His current relationship with Kylie Jenner has been another scandal, driving yet another wedge into his relatability factor. Teenage fans find it strange that someone with Chalamet’s cultural capital would be involved with someone with Jenner’s brand.
These moments were less damaging than they were revealing. But Chalamet’s scandals are stylish and reminiscent of classic Hollywood. They reinforce Chalamet’s cultivated persona of being ambitious, self-aware, unrelatable and uninterested in being universally liked.
For much of the Marty Supreme press tour, Chalamet seems to be method acting—or at least leaning into the arrogance of his character, Marty Mauser. More recently, at the 2025 SAG awards, Chalamet gave a speech in which he proclaimed that he was “in pursuit of greatness,” a line that ruffled the feathers of many armchair critics. Embracing the scrutiny, Timothee Chalamet is aligning himself with the kind of stardom that values character and presence over appeal and approval.
Contributed Photo/Marty Supreme movie premiere
