Timothee Chalamet Opens Up About His Friendship With ‘Beautiful Boy’ Subject Nic Sheff

By Rachel Yang

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The film “Beautiful Boy,” which premiered Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet as father and son. It’s based on books by David Sheff and Nic Sheff about their real experiences with Nic’s drug addiction and its impact on their family. Going in, Chalamet was understandably nervous to portray “another actual human being” going through dark times. But meeting Nic helped to calm his nerves and gave him an “immediate license” to play him, Chalamet said during Variety Studio, presented by AT&T at TIFF.

“It was all trepidation on my part — nerves and anxiety — which was immediately settled by [the] extraordinarily warm and kind and intelligent and wise person that Nic is, that is innate to him but also through his experiences and his life,” Chalamet said.

Chalamet was worried because he had heard negative stories that playing real people could be scary or difficult, but he said his experience “was the opposite of that.”

In fact, when Sheff saw the movie, he made a rather light-hearted observation to Chalamet: “Man, I wish I had all your clothes in the movie.”

During the interview, Chalamet pulled out his phone to show the most recent text from Sheff: “Are you going to wear a tie tonight? I can’t decide.”

When asked if he would want to pose next to David and Nic Sheff on the red carpet, Chalamet is all for it.

“Yeah, if they’ll have me.”

Amazon Studios will release the movie on Oct. 12.