Just to refresh your memory: back in 2018, Timothée Chalamet announced that he would donate his fee from “A Rainy Day in New York,” the film directed by Woody Allen, to Time’s Up, the LGBT Centre in New York, and RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).
Chalamet’s decision to publicly distance himself from Allen, at the height of the #MeToo movement, came weeks after long-standing sexual abuse allegations against the director resurfaced in a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Dylan Farrow titled “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?”
More recently, millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein have been released by the Department of Justice, making the steady stream of daily revelations unsurprising. One particular 2018 email that has drawn my attention includes Chalamet’s publicist at the time, Peggy Siegal, writing that he was “sick” about what he had done to Woody and was “forced” by his “agents” into the decision following pressure from the press.
According to Siegal, Chalamet needed to continue Oscar campaigning for “Call Me By Your Name” without “the press hounding him” about working with Woody, adding that he was “genuinely upset about the whole thing” and had been treated as a “pawn in a bigger game.”
At the time, Chalamet, who was 22, wrote on Instagram that contractual obligations prevented him from directly explaining why he chose to work with Allen, but emphasized that he did not want to profit from the film.
During a 2025 appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Allen criticised Timothée Chalamet and Greta Gerwig for distancing themselves from him, saying, “They are making a mistake… they think that they’re doing something honourable or helpful, but they’re not.”
Allen reiterated that point in his 2020 memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” alleging Chalamet’s decision to donate his salary was motivated by Oscar strategy, writing, “Timothée afterward publicly stated he regretted working with me and was giving the money to charity, but he swore to my sister he needed to do that as he was up for an Oscar for Call Me by Your Name … so he did.”
The film had actually wrapped its six-month production in January 2026, and it’s been in post-production for the last eight months. Fincher is well known for taking his time in the editing room.