The Toronto International Film Festival has only just begun, but Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell’s new film “Beautiful Boy” has been the talk of the town so far.
RELATED: Timothee Chalamet Battles Drug Addiction In New Trailer For ‘Beautiful Boy’
Based on the pair of memoirs written by father and son David and Nic Sheff, “Beautiful Boy” tells the heartbreaking and inspiring real-life experiences of survival, relapse and recovery in a family that has been coping with addiction for several years.
ET Canada sat down with the film’s stars to chat all about what they hope people will take away from the addiction-centreed drama.
“It is very relevant and it’s a compelling story and it’s a true story,” Carell says. “I think they really tried to avoid all the cliches you commonly find in a story like this.”
“I hope we’ll communicate that it’s not a moral failing, addiction, but it’s really a disease,” Chalamet adds. “I feel the same way, but it was also the family dynamics of it and the opportunity to work with Steve, who’s one of my favourite actors and Felix [Van Groeningen], who’s an amazing director.”
The “Call Me By Your Name” star plays the son, Nic Sheff, and opened up about how he accurately prepared for the role of a young man struggling with drug addiction.
“I lost 18 pounds at the beginning of the film just to get whatever that would be as accurate as possible,” Chalamet says. “I must say that obviously I’m not close to the experience of what Nic or people that deal with this go through, but to lose that weight and to not be eating and to still be drinking a lot of coffee, there was a certain… your brain gets scrambled a little bit.”
Check out our full interview with Timothee and Steve above.
