Actor Timothée Chalamet Reportedly Made Up a Contractual Obligation to Justify His Silence on Woody Allen 

Earlier this week, Timothée Chalamet served up his offertory to the Woody Allen penance ceremony, joining several of his castmates from Allen’s newly-wrapped A Rainy Day in New York in donating his salary to Time’s Up, RAINN, and the LGBT Center in New York. Except in his Instagram announcement, he added this little justification for his silence:

I have been asked in a few recent interviews about my decision to work on a film with Woody Allen last summer. I’m not able to answer the question directly because of contractual obligations.

While observing the looong***** tradition of non-answers to the question of how actors can justify taking Allen’s immortalizing roles, none of the several actors who have recently expressed their regrets have mentioned such a clause. That includes disavowals by Colin Firth, Rebecca Hall, Greta Gerwig, Griffin Newman, Ellen Page, David Krumholtz, Rachel Brosnahan, and Mira Sorvino. Selena Gomez, who also stars in the film, reportedly made a donation to Time’s Up in excess of her salary, privately.

The Huffington Post reports that it has reviewed a copy of Chalamet’s agreement, and there is no mention of Dylan Farrow or his personal views on Allen’s alleged sexual assault. The Huffington Post also reports that two actors speculate that Chalamet is still hedging his bets on nominations by playing to both supporters and detractors amongst awards voters:

By donating the money he is appeasing members [of the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy] who believe that Allen abused Farrow, but by not criticizing him explicitly he is avoiding the ire of members who don’t believe the accusations against Allen, including actor Alec Baldwin, who recently referred to actors who have denounced Allen as “unfair and sad.”

That’s assuming a Woody Allen vehicle will be up for Oscar consideration in 2019.

Jezebel has reached out to Allen’s and Chalemet’s representatives and will update the post if we hear back.

*Greta Gerwig, “You know, it’s all very difficult to talk about because I think I and other women – we’ve – feel that this moment has been a long time in coming and also feeling terrified that we’re going to now say the wrong thing.”

*Kate Winslet, “I think on some level Woody [Allen] is a woman.”

*Adrien Brody, “…people have done things in their lives that may be inexcusable, but it’s not something to focus on.”

*Kristen Stewart, “I was like, ‘What do you think? We don’t know any of these people involved. I can personalize situations, which would be very wrong.’”

*Diane Keaton: “I have nothing to say about that. Except: I believe my friend.”