I know at least one person who’s gonna roll his eyes at the title. Don’t fight me.

Well, this entry isn’t really about Timothée, per se, but some of the things he’s been in. *Psst, by the way, he is a damn good actor* I first became a fan of Timothée when I read his interview with Harry Styles for i-D Magazine. It was one hell of an interview, I’ll tell you that. It’s probably just me as I’ve been a fan of Harry Styles for, what? 6 years now? And I’m most likely biased when I say this but it was one of the best interviews I’ve ever read, if not the best. Two young celebs, an actor and a singer/actor, both are currently in the spotlight, talking about art, fame, society and more. It does not get any better than that. The interview brought me to tears, I’m not even kidding. Highly recommended.

Well after the interview I decided to watch Call Me by Your Name, a movie released in 2017 starred by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer. It was one of those movies everybody talked about on the Internet but I never got to see it until recently. Beautiful movie. And I’m gonna talk about a scene from it later.

First thing I wanna talk about is the lines he had in a play called Prodigal Son written by John Patrick Shanley. Although, mind you I’ve never seen the whole play and this is only my take on his lines and some of my thoughts about them.

“Why am I who’s in the wrong? Why do I have to listen to you when you have zero to say? Because I’m young? All my life I’ve been young, so I’ll never get a turn.”

Every single person who’s been silenced because of their age, raise your hand! It’s tiring, isn’t it? To have your whole being, thoughts, opinions and maturity summed up by something as silly as numbers. I’m not saying age means nothing, but it is a factor, not an answer to the question of someone’s maturity. Just because I’m young, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong. Just because you’re old, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right. Hell, even if I’m wrong, correct me. Even if you’re right, educate me. And I’ll do the same thing to you. Don’t silence me before I can even open my mouth and speak my mind.

“Everybody talks to me like I’m the one, you know, I should change. Why should I change? I’m never even gonna find out who I am, you want me to change? That’s crazy! You taught me I’m bad before I even get to be anything. What the hell is that? Original sin or something?”

And this. My goodness, can this be any truer? It’s insane how everyone is put into boxes today. Everybody has labels, people are crazy about labels these days. If you’re one thing then you’re not another. If you’re not this, then you’re that. If you’re not good, you’re bad. And when you’re bad, you’re bad. What the hell is that? What if someone is not any of those things, and they’re still figuring themselves out and they don’t fit into any of those boxes?

People take time to figure things out especially themselves and you don’t have the right to take that opportunity away from them and decide for yourself what they are. It’s unfair that you’re not giving them the chance to do that for themselves. When you’ve judged them as bad before they even have the chance to be something, anything, they’ll live the rest of their lives thinking whatever it is they’ve become, they’re bad. They can be anything but they’re still bad because that’s what you told them what they are.

“It’s you that wants the A before it even starts. But when I say I want the same thing, I’m nuts, right?”

People want us to change for the better, telling us what we should really do and how to do it. They take pride in telling us what is right and what is wrong. But when we have something to say about ourselves and that we want to change, suddenly it becomes impossible to them that we can progress. It’s crazy! They’re all set in telling us we’re wrong that when we say the exact same thing they’ve been saying, it suddenly becomes wrong. Hello? Logic? Where are you?

“And you know what I said, I never met your god? Now I don’t want to.”

This is a great fucking line. If I could paraphrase it, it’ll be something like this:

“I don’t know what world you live in that you want to make my life miserable. I don’t know what god put you through that you see life as unfair and you want the same for me. But I don’t live in that world, I don’t live by that god, and I sure as hell don’t want to.”

And that’s a wrap for Prodigal Son. Now let’s move to Call Me by Your Name. I really want to focus on one particular scene where the father had a long conversation with Elio.

“Remember, our hearts and body are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart’s worn out. And as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now, there's sorrow, pain. Don't kill it. And with it the joy you felt."

I love how the father told Elio not to kill that sadness and grief, because those are emotions and they are a part of him. To ignore the pain and heartbreak is to ignore the love he has and that's such a waste. He had the privilege to experience love in its purest nature, one that brought him to his highest high and lowest low. And to get rid of the low is to deny the high altogether. 

I don't think we hear this enough, we don't see how important or precious feelings are, even the bad ones. We're told that bad is bad and we have to get rid of it, to forget and move on and never to mourn. And suppressing the feelings, or even worse, deleting them is not how we deal with what makes us who we are. Human emotions and feelings are natural, universal and they deserve to be embraced.

Numbing it is how we become less and less human each time we have our hearts broken. The longer we deny and supress our sadness, the stronger it’ll be once it comes back because we’ve been harvesting it. Learn to let it go, and to let go we must first accept it as it is, engulf ourselves in it and emerge from it stronger than ever. We can’t drown in sadness and we can’t let happiness take us too high that we forget the ground, but we can play in between. Experience life as it is, forgive yourself for being human, and for having emotions.

I suppose that’s it from me for today. I don’t know how to sum it up because I’ve been jumping from one thing to another but I will say this. Watching TV and movies is not all bad. You just have to pick and choose what you want to learn from it. And this whole entry is about what I personally took out from what I’ve watched.

Oh and Timothée Chalamet is damn good actor.

-Nik.