Timothée Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey on Interstellar, Marty Supreme

“I’m in the pocket. I’m restless and I’m hungry, and I am in the pocket, man.”

Timothée Chalamet is outlining his career philosophy at an almost feverish pace before an audience at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication. The UT students have a lot of questions for him, and they’ll get their chance to ask them at this taping of a first-of-its-kind town hall event produced by Variety and CNN, which puts Chalamet in conversation with Matthew McConaughey, a UT alum and professor. The talk, which airs at 7 p.m. on Feb. 21 on CNN and will soon be available on Variety’s YouTube channel and the CNN app, marks a reunion for the two actors, who first met on the set of Christopher Nolan’s 2014 sci-fi epic “Interstellar.” 

“I think you could see I was aimless but motivated,” Chalamet, 30, says to McConaughey, 56, about working together on “Interstellar.” Chalamet was just 17 then, freshly graduated from high school and wrestling with whether to put academics behind him and commit to acting. His career was just beginning: “Interstellar” was his second film ever, and he was in only the first 37 minutes as the teenage son of the space and time traveler played by McConaughey. (Casey Affleck appears as the older version of Chalamet’s character for the rest of the nearly three-hour movie.) In McConaughey, Chalamet found an offbeat role model — and an understanding ear. “I remember you had a yoga mat, and you’d be working out and sleeping on set. It was all very strange to me,” he says. “But it was super inspiring. I just can’t thank you enough for being warm to me at that time, when you had no reason to be warm to me. It just changed my life, man.” McConaughey is touched: “You were pretty easy to be warm to.”

That warmth between them has endured, though they behave less as father and son now than as peers, even brothers. During a photo shoot before the town hall begins, they drape their arms around each other’s shoulders, then start kicking their legs out and shouting in gibberish: “Shaaa!” Grinning and giggling, their chatter in between camera setups is all over the place. One moment, Chalamet is showing McConaughey wrestling clips on YouTube, and the next, he’s introducing McConaughey to his “Marty Supreme” director Josh Safdie over FaceTime. “Howdy, howdy, howdy!” McConaughey says, promising that they’ll meet up and “make each other laugh” in the future.

But amid all the silliness, McConaughey looks at his young counterpart’s career with deep seriousness and respect — even sharing a short poem about Chalamet during the town hall: “An outlaw on the fringes and in the slipstream,” McConaughey reads. “Fearlessly choosing creative damage in the re-creation of the humanities on-screen — your way.” He’s as fascinated by Chalamet’s performance in Safdie’s frenetic 2025 film as he is by the way Chalamet is now hungrily campaigning for the Oscar for best actor — the same honor McConaughey won for “Dallas Buyers Club” in 2014. 

Chalamet is unafraid to embrace the qualities he shares with Marty, a hedonistic New Yorker who happily commits crimes and forsakes his loved ones in pursuit of a table tennis world championship. “Not in the way that he’s antagonizing the woman in his life and being treacherous,” Chalamet says, laughing — though he does identify with Marty’s reckless ambition.

For 90 minutes, Chalamet and McConaughey have a freewheeling conversation about the memories they hold onto from “Interstellar,” how vying for the Oscar has become a “creative extension” of Chalamet’s performance in “Marty Supreme” — and an interaction between McConaughey and Chalamet’s “Dune” co-star Austin Butler that bordered on flirtation.

Matthew McConaughey: Who are the students from [my class] “Script to Screen”? 

[Six students raise their hands.]

Timothée Chalamet: Who tried to sign up for that class and didn’t get in?

[The crowd laughs as most of the remaining students raise their hands.]

McConaughey: Let’s talk about “Interstellar,” where we met, bud.

Chalamet: Man, that’s remains my favorite project I’ve ever been in. I think it’s your most fantastic role. I know you were coming off “Dallas Buyers Club,” but that movie, to me, was the origin point in seeing how you carried yourself on set, how seriously you and Christopher Nolan took the work. It gave me a license. Coming out of high school, it’s hard to take yourself super seriously. You can feel like you’re wasting time or stuck-up or something. And I remember you had a yoga mat, and you’d be working out and sleeping on set. It was all very strange to me. But it was super inspiring. I just can’t thank you enough for being warm to me at that time, when you had no reason to be warm to me. Christopher as well. It just changed my life, man.

McConaughey: Thanks for that, man. You were pretty easy to be warm to. I remember you had what I felt like was a feverish curiosity at that time. You were figuring some stuff out, but it seemed obvious to me that no matter what you were dealing with, you were going to make your way. And I believe you were in some sort of limbo. You were choosing — something about music, and somebody was putting pressure about, “Maybe go this way,” and you wanted to go this way.

Chalamet: I can’t believe you remember that. I was getting pulled between going to college, which is what my parents wanted for me, or pursuing acting right away. No one in their right mind tells a young person, “Hey, drop out of school and go pursue acting.” And I remember you were really just open to all those possibilities. You talked about red lights, yellow lights, green lights. You were very comfortable encouraging me to be at my yellow light, figuring out where I was gonna go from there. Those 10 days I worked — you worked probably 60 or 90 on that movie, for me it was a humble 10 days — they put me on a trajectory. For three years of not working, it gave me the fuel I needed to keep going.
McConaughey: I didn’t know that we were going to be sitting here this many years later talking about your career, but it was clear to me then: Whatever this young man does latch onto, he will catch it.

Chalamet: I gotta say, my last day on “Interstellar,” I was sad to be leaving. In my trailer, I went to the bathroom and there was a huge turd in my toilet. I felt so disrespected. Like, “I know I’m not the star of this movie, but who’s coming in here?” So I went around to all the grips, these big guys, and I said, “Hey, one of you let it loose in my trailer.” They said no. I went up to Nolan, and he pointed to Matthew, and Matthew had this devilish grin on his face. I said, “Why’d you do that?” You said, “In Texas, it’s a coming of age, baby.”

McConaughey: Souvenir.

Chalamet: That’s a true story.

McConaughey: What did you learn from Nolan?

Chalamet: Shit, man. Nolan is my favorite director to this day. “The Dark Knight” made me want to act. “Inception” inspired me. When I read the script to “Interstellar,” I thought it was gonna change the world. And I learned as much from him as I learned from you. You guys took the work extremely seriously. I got a sense from you two that you felt like you were walking on sacred ground. You were like, “This is sacred. I don’t want to treat this as anything other than sacred.” And it was just so inspiring. It was hard to go back to college after that.

McConaughey: Nolan’s like a general. And a taskmaster. He’s the first up the hill in the morning and the last down the hill at the end of the day. Every single day. 

Chalamet: What was your experience like with him?

McConaughey: He had written this world and these concepts, and the rules of this world. Time travel, and how it’s different in different places and different frequencies. So I would go to him to ask the rules sometimes. Sometimes he’d give me an answer, and sometimes he’d be like, “I don’t know. Let me get back to you.” And he’d always come back. A week later: “I thought about that question you asked.” He’d lay it out, and it would make sense.

The other thing I remember is that Chris will not make something simple complicated. This is a man that had a budget to get all the toys, but the way we shot certain scenes where I’m floating through space, I’m on a gimbal that he’s holding onto on the other side. I remember going like, “Why wouldn’t you use the big cranes?” “Because it’s a waste of money. It’s only as good — or not as good — as this. This, what I learned in independent filmmaking, is still the best way to get this shot.” He would always keep it simple when you need to keep it simple.

Chalamet: As much as I’m impressed by actors in very grounded circumstances, I’m almost more impressed by a technical level of execution like you do in “Interstellar,” where you’re communicating what’s happening in a vehicle in space and locating that geographically for us as an audience. That is hard to do. I watched “Interstellar” again the other day, and it feels so real, and now I find out Nolan’s shaking you on a gimbal or something.

McConaughey: You do a lot of work like that in “Dune.”

Chalamet: Hugely inspired by you on “Interstellar.” There were times on “Dune” where I felt like, “OK, how do I ground this for myself?” I would look at your level of preparation and be deeply inspired. On “Dune 3,” as opposed to the first movie, I came out early and studied the control panel — all sorts of hieroglyphics and things that aren’t tethered to reality. I wanted to know what each button did, and invent a dynamic for myself with it.

McConaughey: That’s our job, whether it’s on screen or not. The scene’s not about you knowing everything on the panel. Just the way we move, to add an idea of “I understand what that is.” The comfort.

Chalamet: The comfort and confidence. I remember coming to set on “Interstellar” and you saying to me, “How does that tractor work?” I had no clue. You said, “You should know. If you were on this farm, you would know.” I thought you were half-joking, so I cracked a laugh, and you said, “No. You should really know.” I went home that night and printed a bunch of research. I knocked on your trailer door. I was proud to show it. That stuff means a lot, man. As an actor, all you risk is looking foolish, because it’s a tremendously foolish job. If you can embrace that foolishness, nothing can stop you. You’re on a powerful light source, man, if you can embrace the clown in all this. 

McConaughey: In the creative arts, it’s not about being right. If you’re right too often, you’re not taking enough risk. Don’t be afraid of the foolishness. Don’t be afraid of going, “I have no idea. Should I know about that? I didn’t know I should know about that.

Chalamet: I always said, “Beware of the people in life that get more of the advice they give you than you get at the advice.” They’re thrilled by the act of giving you advice. All of a sudden you can’t listen to what they’re saying anymore because they’re flexing on you so hard. You never did that to me, though, which I’m grateful for. I had an actor do that to me once. No names, but the guy was a punk. He asked me what conservatory I had gone to, and I said I didn’t go to an acting conservatory. And he said, “Well, you haven’t trained as an actor then.” And we were all part of an ensemble.

I’ve legitimately seen [“Interstellar”] 22 times or something. I saw it 12 times in theaters when it came out.

McConaughey: His girlfriend [Kylie Jenner] set him up a screening for his birthday.

Chalamet: This is true. I was grumpy on the way there because I didn’t know where she was taking me. I was like, “It’s my birthday. Why are we driving 30 minutes outside of L.A.?” I got to the theater: It was “Interstellar” in Imax. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Audience question from Ethan Xavier: What instinct do you trust most when choosing a role, and when has listening to that instinct surprised or scared you?

Chalamet: The instinct is to work with great directors, first and foremost. If you’re trying to do a great performance, but you don’t have somebody wrangling it in a good way, it doesn’t come to fruition. The riskiest thing was “Wonka.” It was an untraditional career step, in that I had done serious movies already. But that director, Paul King — “Paddington” and “Paddington 2” are tremendous movies to me. I feel like that movie didn’t get its fair shake, even though it was financially successful. I honestly thought it was kinda punk rock to do something that wasn’t so cool, about drugs or something. But I don’t think people really took it that way. It is what it is. I got some free chocolate out of it.

McConaughey: Speaking of punk rock, let’s [talk about] “Marty Supreme.”

Chalamet: I connected with the spirit of Marty. I’d never been approached to do a role like that. Any part of me that ever did a fashion or perfume commercial — this role was the exact opposite. I love Laurie in “Little Women,” but [Safdie] wanted the exact opposite. When you have no backstop in life, when you’re your only person that’s rooting for you — I can relate less now, because I have people rooting for me — that does something to a person. You could say people [like that] are big dreamers or have freedom, but their fate has been taken hostage by their dream. They’re a victim to it. I felt like that when I was [younger]. I still feel like that to a degree. I’m like, “Shit, I’m on a roll. I gotta see this through.”

[Safdie] is the first person I worked with that I felt like was brethren. With Greta Gerwig, we had a cultural sensibility that was the same. But Josh and I can exchange memes. Denis Villeneuve or Christopher Nolan, I’m not sending them shitbag memes. Josh will send me weird shit, man. Josh sent me a meme on the set of “Dune 2” that I showed Denis, whose face went white. He approached me like, “You’re not showing this to everyone, right?”

McConaughey: Josh is the kind of guy that’ll leave a deuce in your trailer.

Chalamet: Worse than that. He would, like, force himself to throw up in your toilet or something. Like, “Why’d you force yourself? What point were you making?” He’s gonna kill me for saying that. But I loved working with Josh. He’s a fire-breather.

McConaughey: You’ve said this role was most like you. Why?

Chalamet: When you’re from New York and you grow up in a box, your personality is all you have. Your personality is your armor. I was smaller than everyone growing up. I’m still smaller than everyone. So you weaponize that. I was a crazy kid on the subway growing up. I’d be singing the French national anthem to impress girls who were twice my size. And Marty is that guy. I love the glasses and the bad skin because he’s like, “It’s all attitude, man. I don’t give a fuck. I’m the best table tennis player in the world. You can’t take shit from me. You might have more money or more power, but when it comes to that fucking table and that paddle and that little orange ball, I’m the king, man.” It’s like when I was on “Interstellar.” I’m living in my mom’s place in New York, and I see you and I see Nolan and Anne Hathway. I see the SUVs, and I’m arriving in the cast van. I’m like, “I wanna be in the SUV, man.” And by some miracle, it’s going well. It is moving to be here with you. I’m fucking stoked.

McConaughey: It’s not just miracle. I wrote this about you — tell me if I’m reading your mail. “I see you right now as an artist with a perpetual artistic energy. Unrest. Ambition. Obsession. The center of attention and exceptional ambience at the same time. A young man blazing an original path without asking permission. An outlaw on the fringes and in the slipstream. Fearlessly choosing creative damage in the re-creation of the humanities on-screen — your way.” Is that fair?

Chalamet: Oh, man. I can’t say it better than that. I feel like that’s exactly where I am, Matthew. I know 30’s young, still, but I had a quarter, midlife [crisis] in feeling like, “Wait a second. I’m in the pocket. I want to keep pushing it.” People said it’s promo, but it’s not promo. It’s a creative extension of the movie. I’m restless and I’m hungry, and I am in the pocket, man. People say I have an athletic approach to this stuff. I am inspired by Jordan. I’m inspired by Kobe. And I know you are. And I know people are behind closed doors. That’s what fucks me up. I know people, behind closed doors, are as driven. It’s strange to get to L.A. A lot of these parties have crazy people in them. That’s why I don’t like to go to them anymore. The gift of my life is exactly what you just said right there: to be in the middle path. A lot of people have partied hard. A lot of people have taken it for granted. Too few people have just taken what they’re doing seriously.

So I’m right there, man. We should hang out more, Matthew. We should hang out more, baby.

McConaughey: How much do you think you’re being called on this path and how much have you got your hands on the wheel, driving it?

Chalamet: Thank God, man. No one’s framed any questions like this to me, man. I’m so grateful you’re asking things like this.

I feel like I’m right in the driver’s seat, man. As actors, you get told what to say or what projects to do, and you get trashed online. So every incentive is to move in fear. Not to sound like some pathetic self-help guru, but I don’t wanna move in fear. I wanna move in confidence and joy. This is rare stuff. Even to book “Interstellar” was rare. So I’m moving in deep gratitude, and I wanna leave it behind for someone else.

I’m learning that part of the trick of the trade is you’re gonna push people’s knobs a little bit. We work in a really institutionalized industry. It’s not like music: You can be 20 years old and make a fire record out of your bedroom. Here, you have gatekeepers. You gotta get your project financed. You gotta audition. People can get a little uncomfortable if you’re pushing against them. I feel like that’s my job, man. That sounds like some delusional grandeur, divine purpose thing, but that’s what I mean. I’m gonna push the edge, baby.

McConaughey: Your gratitude has fangs.

Chalamet: That too, man.

Audience question from Emily Martin: In “Marty Supreme,” your character neglects the relationships in his life in the pursuit of excellence. How do you balance your personal relationships while engaging with several demanding projects?

Chalamet: I’m incredibly lucky with the family and support system I’ve had from the beginning. And I know how lucky I am because I talk to peers of mine who haven’t had the same support system. The cliches of “Hey, this person wants something out of you,” sometimes in a really dark way — a financial way, or whatever. My parents pathologically don’t expect anything out of me — to a fault, maybe. I feel like some things, I was too late to spring to, as far as ways I could have stepped up. It’s a balancing act though. Increasingly, I want all my friends to win so we can all relate to each other a little bit more. That’s kinda dark. But in a personal relationship now, in love and life, I’ve just been really lucky.

And I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older to give it back. I was more like Marty in the beginning of life. “Give me all the love and support so I can do my thing.” I was a sponge for that. But I felt like I needed to be like that, because I felt like Marty, like my back was against the wall. I’m like, “If I’m the only person believing in me, this is it.” I went to dinner the other night with a really good friend of mine and someone we both looked up to — you won’t be able to figure it out, it’s somebody I’ve never been associated with online — but he didn’t ask us anything about ourselves the whole dinner. It was a letdown. I was fearful of ending up like that. Just anything! Ask us anything! “How are you?”

I’m really excited to talk to you about “Dallas Buyers Club.”

McConaughey: I observed some of these people in the early ’80s. To say or insinuate that you had HIV, those were fighting words. “You callin’ me a faggot? Let’s take it outside, motherfucker. I’ll whip your ass.”

Chalamet: When you look at the physical requirements of that role — you were coming off it on “Interstellar.” I remember you telling me you were still going a lot.

McConaughey: I said what?

Chalamet: I was saying, “Hey, what’d you do this weekend?” You said, “I got a massage, and I had to get up and shit like three times during.”

McConaughey: Shit jokes are all over this thing.

Chalamet: Ten years later, would you do something again with that physical requirement on your body?

McConaughey: Yeah, if it’s the right role. I don’t think it’s as tough as people think it is. I lost 47 pounds. That was not hard to do, because I just got regimented. Got obsessed. If I show up in the scene not looking like I have HIV, people are gonna go, “Bullshit!” That’s embarrassing. I didn’t do my job. I fumbled the ball. It’s a job requirement. So I gave myself five months and lost the weight. I will tell you this: The power that I lost in my body sublimated to my brain. Clinical memory — expanded threefold from what it was prior.

Chalamet: What if it was to put on 75 pounds?

McConaughey: Well, I put on another 40 on “Gold” and got to 223. I could have swam through the canals naked in Amsterdam and not even got a cold. I was like the Abominable Snowman.

Chalamet: What did you like better?

McConaughey: Well, it was a whole lot more fun at 223.

Chalamet: What did your wife like better?

McConaughey: 223, bro.

Chalamet: She liked that.

McConaughey: I had a lot of energy.

Chalamet: Shit.

McConaughey: I was like, “Y’all want another pizza for breakfast? Yes.” “Milkshakes again? Yes.” “‘Yes’ is the answer to anything more fun. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Anytime’s a good time for more yes.” I think that would be my family’s favorite character I played.

Chalamet: A glutton.

McConaughey: I gave myself license to go be a glutton for three and a half months. You wake up and look in the mirror on Monday morning after you gained another four pounds from all the fried chicken you ate that week and go, “Great job, buddy.”

Chalamet: How’d you lose it after?

McConaughey: Kinda still am.

Chalamet: Do you ever go back and watch “True Detective”?

McConaughey: No. I’ve never seen anything I’ve done twice.

Chalamet: Really?

McConaughey: Yeah.

Chalamet: Really? No way. Come on. You’ve seen “Interstellar” once?

McConaughey: Mm-hmm.

Chalamet: No. Come on, man. Really? No way, man. You’re doing yourself a disservice.

McConaughey: Maybe so. I’m a little uncomfortable going back. And I must say, now that I have children, when any of my films get brought up as possible things for us to watch, my kids go, “Yeah… let’s do that one next week.” So my kids haven’t seen 95% of the stuff I’ve done. One day they’ll look back like, “Hey, Pop wasn’t half bad at that.” 

Chalamet: But I don’t know if I believe it. “Interstellar” once? No way, man. I can’t believe that. I’m guessing you actually have seen it four or five times.

McConaughey: I’m really not trying to hide it. It’s a workout for me, seeing movies that I’ve done.

On “Marty Supreme,” look at what you’re doing with the marketing. You’re disrupting things. Before anyone can go away, you’re on to the next. You’re doing fashion ads. You’re using smaller media. You’re not exclusive to Friday night when I buy the ticket to go to the theater. [That’s not] the only time I can spend time with Timothée Chalamet.

Chalamet: I think that’s of the past, man. Who the fuck is popular enough to go, “Hey, you’re only going to see me [in the movie]”? A “Barbie” or an “Oppenheimer,” those things are game-changing. They pull people in in a really engaging way. I don’t even want to speak too much about it, because I feel it kills my mojo a little bit.

McConaughey: Heard. OK.

Chalamet: I’m not being defensive —

McConaughey: No, no, no. Don’t say it. To all future directors out there, if you’re directing somebody and things are going well, shut the fuck up. And just let it go. Because if you name it — “Hey, I see what you’re doing” — it was a magic trick before you spelled it. Let it be a magic trick.

Audience question from Quentin Chiu: Timothée, I heard about your love for professional wrestling, and I was wondering if that has influenced the way that you approach acting.

Chalamet: Growing up, I wanted to be an athlete — I just didn’t have the skill, the body, the physique, the speed. WWE and professional wrestling was somewhere in the middle. It was athletes, but with showmanship and storytelling. It’s planned. It’s scripted. It’s fake, some people say, but the blows are real. The bruises are real. So it’s hugely inspirational. And not to get too pretentious, but in a Greek theater setting, the archetypes these guys represent. I loved a wrestler called the Boogeyman, and he was archetypally nightmarish. It can be kind of cheesy sometimes, but when you’re a teenager, things imprint on your brain more than they do later in life. We were watching Kevin Nash’s entrance video backstage today, because he did “Magic Mike” with Kevin Nash, being sexy men. 

It’s of the people, no matter how cheesy that sounds. It’s deeply archetypal storytelling. It’s war of the worlds, and it’s not told in a pretentious manner. It’s not about cinematic shots, but it gets to a core. There’s nothing like WWE, man. They should pay me for saying this. 

McConaughey: What’s your wrestling name?

Chalamet: The French Fool.

Audience question from Presley McGurl: Timmy, your recent collaboration with EsDeeKid was a massive, iconic moment across social media, and we really got to see you spit some bars. Do you plan on making a return to rap music anytime soon?

Chalamet: Not particularly. You know, Frank Ocean has a gift from God. Justin Bieber has a gift from God. Their voices are heavenly. So I’ve always had total humility at the idea of doing music. I would never want it to be a vanity project. All your friends are like, “This is amazing,” and you put it out and everyone shits on it. That would be my big fear.

McConaughey: In “A Complete Unknown” — the opposite of “Marty Supreme” — you didn’t look anybody in the eye.

Chalamet: He wouldn’t. That’s the coolest Bob Dylan thing ever. He was a mainstream icon and wanted none of it. Frank Ocean, he’s sort of like that. It is so rare now. Like, you’re the greatest R&B artist of our time, and now you can’t find him. Except for [when he wore] that “Marty Supreme” jacket.

Audience question from Jacob Gonzalez: Which one of y’all has the weirder daily routine?

Chalamet: This guy, for sure.

McConaughey: He says I always smell good.

Chalamet: He does. He smells amazing. I saw a clip of Matthew and Austin Butler. These beautiful men. Matthew and Austin could talk to you two inches closer than you’re normally used to someone talking to you — but they both do it. I’m watching this clip: I saw Matthew get closer to Austin, I saw Austin get closer to Matthew and then Matthew gets closer to Austin. And then Austin — I was like, “They’re gonna do it! They’re gonna kiss!” I love seeing that, because I don’t have that. That alpha thing. If I was talking to you [that close], you’d be like, “Yo, get the fuck away from me.”

Audience question from Alexi Haines: If you could go back in time, what would you tell your younger self?

McConaughey: Two things: “I know that you want to be older because in your mind it’s cooler. Don’t rush. It’ll come.” And “I know you love risks, and you take them. Take more.”

Chalamet: I would tell him, “Don’t change anything, man. It went great. Don’t fuck it up.”