Timothée Chalamet was in London this week, continuing to promote A Complete Unknown. Yesterday he was part of Vanity Fair’s first ever Reunited Live at BFI Southbank, with Saoirse Ronan. The “reunited” part of this should be well known. They’ve been in three films together, two by Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird and Little Women, both of which are internet classics which is kinda like the equivalent of “cult classic” for these times.

Saoirse and Timmy are two of the top talents of their generation, matching each other this year as each has two projects that have put them in awards conversation: The Outrun and Blitz for Saoirse and Dune: Part 2 and A Complete Unknown for Timmy. So the conversation was a lookback at their working relationship and careers, a lot of fangirling over each other and Greta, and also an insightful anecdote here and there.

This one is my favourite. Here’s Timmy talking about what he’s learned from Saoirse – and this is not technique, it’s not craft, it’s not about acting but about the responsibility of an actor to the entire production that goes beyond performance:

“I also remember on Little Women, I had Beautiful Boy coming out at that time and that was basically the second “big-ish movie” I was in, and I was having a hard time getting people on the phone to help me figure out my schedule where I was going to go. I wanted to do a regional tour and visit places in the states that were affected by that story. I was in my trailer, and I guess I was supposed to be in the chair at a certain time and I was on the phone trying to do this thing and I get this bang on my trailer door, really intensely. I was thinking someone died, and I opened the door and its Saoirse in a bald cap. She’s like, “get your ass in the f-cking trailer right now! They’re waiting for you in the hair and makeup.” And I always just love that memory.”

As if we weren’t already obsessed with Saoirse and now there’s another reason. She did that out of consideration for the other members of the team, the hair and makeup people, the coordinators and assistants and the crew who are never in control of their own time because “star time” is the only time.

There’s another bit from the conversation I’m now so curious about and it’s when they’re asked what genre of movie they’ve not yet explored but would like to. Saoirse wants to do a musical. She’s apparently very into Wicked right now (like the rest of us!) and then clarifies that:

“I would like to do a biopic of someone. I’m not going to say who it is. I don’t want someone else to steal it.”

The only other hint she gives is that the person is alive. WHOOOOOO is it?!? Any guesses? Here’s mine: Lucinda Williams. She released a memoir last year. And if I were writing the screenplay, I would call it “Lonely Girls”.

Saoirse wasn’t Timmy’s only reunion though. The other happened at a screening for A Complete Unknown where Tom Cruise showed up. Tom has more than one connection to the film. He worked with director James Mangold on Knight and Day (co-starring Cameron Diaz). Both Greg Tarzan Davis and Monica Barbaro were in Top Gun: Maverick. And Tom starred with Elle Fanning’s sister, Dakota, in War of the Worlds, so he met little Elle back then and then actually shouted her out at the Top Gun: Maverick premiere in Cannes in 2022.

As for Timmy? He’s a huge fan of Top Gun: Maverick. When he was filming Dune: Part Two in the summer of 2022, he saw TG:M eight times and one of those times bought out a whole theatre for the cast and crew to watch it together. He shared this with British GQ back in the fall of 2023 and also talked about the email that Tom sent him after the first Dune:

“After I met Tom Cruise, right after finishing the first Dune, he sent me the most wonderfully inspiring email,” Chalamet said. It included a Rolodex of sorts of all the experts he might need for stunt training. A motorcycle coach. A helicopter coach. “He basically said, in Old Hollywood, you would be getting dance training and fight training, and nobody is going to hold you to that standard today. So it’s up to you. The email was really like a war cry.”

And now here’s Tom, the movie guy who loves movies, nobody loves movies more than Tom Cruise, showing up to see Timmy’s movie that was directed by and stars all these people that he’s personally associated with. So if there’s any way to expand the Pete Maverick Mitchell Top Gun universe, maybe he could have a son, LOL, because I feel like Timmy would definitely be on board.