Love My Way: A con­ver­sa­tion with Armie Ham­mer and Timothée Chalamet

Armie Ham­mer and Timothée Cha­la­met, stars of Luca Guadagnino’s swoon­ing sum­mer­time dra­ma, Call Me by Your Name, answer our ques­tions about movies, romance and what makes a great holiday.

LWLies: What’s your fond­est mem­o­ry from being on set?

Armie Ham­mer: If I had to pick one thing it would be the meals. Luca is a con­sum­mate epi­cure­an, and watch­ing how he sen­su­al­ly inter­acts with every­thing, it’s like he tru­ly wants to fuck every­thing around him. It makes you enjoy the food more, it makes you enjoy the wine more, the ambi­ence, the sen­sa­tions, the fab­ric, the table­cloth, every­thing. There was this one meal we had in a lit­tle tiny town called Orzoni, we must have ordered at least a kilo of caviar. We ate caviar and drank ice-cold vod­ka and had amaz­ing wine from the wine cel­lar. I recent­ly went back to Cre­ma, where we shot the film, large­ly to see Luca, but equal­ly large­ly to go to that restau­rant and see Ste­fano the chef.

Timothée Cha­la­met: Just the mem­o­ries of Armie and Michael [Stuhlbarg] and Luca, explor­ing the town, hang­ing out, watch­ing films togeth­er, get­ting espres­so… There was a fam­i­ly bond that felt espe­cial­ly strong on this film. It was such a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with a real­ly gen­er­ous and kind cast and crew. Cre­ma is Luca’s home so we were very much in a Luca Guadagni­no film.

What does hap­pi­ness mean to you?

AH: Hap­pi­ness is that head­space where you are so thor­ough­ly con­tent exact­ly where you are, with who you’re with, that you don’t feel the need to look at your phone, you don’t feel the need to look around. You’re there, and you’re still.

TC: It’s that feel­ing of flow. I think you can accom­plish flow doing any­thing, it can be sta­pling papers, it can be play­ing sport, it can be the way you dri­ve a car. If you can achieve that kind of ow where it becomes mind­less, sen­so­ry and instinc­tive – that’s happiness.

When did you fall in love with acting?

AH: When I was about 12, I was liv­ing in the Cay­man Islands, and I saw Home Alone – it looked like the most fun thing in the world. He was in his house, he had mini­guns, he had flamethrow­ers, he had gad­gets, he had boo­by traps. In my child-like brain, that was act­ing. It nev­er hit me how real it was until much lat­er when I almost got red by my agent at the time. She called and said, ​‘You’re not work­ing, you’re my only client who doesn’t work, I’m ring you.’ That’s when it became real and more about the work, and allow­ing fear of fail­ure to be a moti­vat­ing force.

TC: When I got to LaGuardia high school, which is a per­form­ing arts school in New York. Pri­or to that I had done some com­mer­cial act­ing, and when you’re sell­ing prod­ucts it’s a case of who can smile the biggest. With LaGuardia every­thing was about act­ing and react­ing and address­ing the exis­ten­tial ques­tions of act­ing. It became about find­ing truth in art.

What’s your def­i­n­i­tion of a great holiday?

AH: Being some­where remote enough that when you turn off your cell phone you are unreach­able, and you can unplug and spend time with your fam­i­ly, spend time with your­self, spend time doing noth­ing, and just enjoy it. When I’m on vaca­tion I like to be hot, I like to be warm enough to sweat – that’s my goal.

TC: Where you feel like you’re hav­ing time off, there’s no oblig­a­tion to do any­thing and you can just recharge.

How would you describe your rela­tion­ship with your co-star?

AH: We have a fan­tas­tic rela­tion­ship, maybe one of the best I’ve ever had on a film. Timothée is such a spe­cial per­son in terms of the nature of who he is, and the tal­ent that he pos­sess­es, which is just insane. I’m a lit­tle old­er than he is, so there were times that would kin­da go, ​‘Hey, lis­ten, I know that you’re gonna do what­ev­er you wan­na do, but from my expe­ri­ence I’ve learned blah blah blah…’ and he nev­er bris­tled at any­thing I said. He’s just a very open, ter­rif­ic person

TC: It’s a real­ly great rela­tion­ship. We’ve got a real broth­er­ly bond. I real­ly lucked out get­ting to work with such a tal­ent­ed actor, some­one I look up to so much. He’s also an amaz­ing hus­band and an amaz­ing father – he’s 30 and I’m 21 so to me he’s like a roadmap of sorts.

What does love feel like to you?

AH: An over­abun­dance of vibra­tions in your body that all make you want to explode, like your body can’t con­tain it all.

TC: The def­i­n­i­tion changes by the day, and what I can think of today as far as what love is to me would be hav­ing the secu­ri­ty to receive warmth.

When did you last cry?

AH: My grand­ma, about two weeks ago, she basi­cal­ly called all of the grand­kids to say good­bye, and to say that she loved us. She’d been hav­ing strokes and she just felt that it was her time. That rocked me to the core, I com­plete­ly fell apart. I was in the mid­dle of a press tour for Cars 3 and dropped every­thing to go see my grand­ma. So, that was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence because we all cried, but we also laughed a lot more than we cried. We all got togeth­er and told sto­ries about her and she told us sto­ries about each oth­er and it was just a real­ly beau­ti­ful thing.

TC: Um, I don’t know.

When did you last see your father?

AH: The safe answer is prob­a­bly two or three months ago.

TC: About two-and-a-half weeks ago. We went to a café́ in New York; he was about to fly to France and we just had a nice lit­tle moment before he jumped on the subway.

What’s the last great movie you saw?

AH: The last great, great movie I saw was Apoc­a­lypse Now. It’s the only movie I have saved on my iPad that’s not a children’s movie.

TC: I just saw Glen­gar­ry Glen Ross with my mom and it was awesome.

What’s the most roman­tic ges­ture you’ve ever made?

AH: I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly believe in mar­riage, at least not the way peo­ple believed in mar­riage 50 years ago, where you got mar­ried to have a baby. But the biggest ges­ture I’ve ever made was com­mit­ting to my wife. I was like, ​‘I want to mar­ry you. I know how much that means to me and I know what I hope it means to you. And then I want to have a baby, I want to start a fam­i­ly, I want to cre­ate an entire life with you.’ That’s a very pow­er­ful and roman­tic ges­ture, I think.

TC: Um… I mean, you can’t go wrong with flowers.

Call Me by Your Name is released 27 Octo­ber. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.