“DID I WATCH WHAT, SORRY?” director and co-writer of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory prequel movie Wonka Paul King asks. “I don’t think I know what ‘Statistics’ is.”
SFX is discussing music with King because his new leading man – not Paddington Bear this time – brings a bit of experience to his latest film.
“Ah, I have seen the rap video,” he says of Timothée Chalamet’s viral internet school musical offering. “He showed me the rap video, I think just to make fun of himself. It was entirely social. Maybe he just hopes that I was the person who was really going to help him break out into that world. He chose the wrong person!”
It was another of Chalamet’s performances from LaGuardia’s School of Music and Performing Arts in New York that brought the Dune star to King’s attention.
“I saw his high school musical, which is on YouTube, which I think was Company. I watched that and went, ‘Oh yeah, he can definitely sing and dance and he’s very, very talented.’ But there was no call for rapping in the movie,” he deadpans. “I think he’s a truly extraordinary performer,” he says of Chalamet, having first seen him in Homeland, then later Call Me By Your Name – but not realising it was the same actor.
Of the latter King says “It completely blew me
