Even Mongolian periodicals are evangelizing Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet’s movie “Call Me by Your Name.” Chalamet’s young, good-looking. Armie’s older, taller (6-foot-5), and handsome enough for an underwear ad.
This story of two males in love has shots of nudity. Says Armie, great-grandson of the late industrialist Armand Hammer, who owned a lot of stock in products known as Arm & Hammer: “I studied at Stella Adler’s. My first screen test was long ago. Some in our classy family were possibly rightfully hesitant at my becoming an actor.
“Then, of course, comes this role. I’m married, straight, have two kids. The part was a little dicey.”
Tieless, jacketless, he says: “We shot in Crema, a little town in Northern Italy. One special scene you might look for: I eat a peach.” (It’s après sex.) He paused. Unsure what to then ask, my next question was, “Was it juicy?”
Smiled Armie: “At least it was . . . afterward.”
Timothée, also the heartthrob in director Greta Gerwig’s film “Lady Bird”: “I started doing commercials at 11 and took acting lessons in my La Guardia High School.
“But my whole family’s in the business. I love making movies. I have a passion for the theater. My grandfather was a screenwriter, my mother’s an actress, my uncle’s a director, my aunt’s a screenwriter. I already know a lot of people in my life.”
James Ivory, of Merchant Ivory Productions’ ’80s and ’90s award-winning movies such as “Howards End” and “A Room With a View,” wrote the script. “I was familiar with the original 2007 book. They couldn’t at first get a director so when they asked me to write this, I said yes. But I said, ‘I want to write my own script.’ Took me a year to do.
“Everyone I knew has gone. It’s sad. Even our Merchant and Ivory library is now owned by Charles Cohen’s Cohen Media. But I’m still doing things.”
Happy birthday to Marty!
Scorsese, currently filming “The Irishman” locally with De Niro, Pacino, Keitel, Joe Pesci, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano (does not sound like a musical), celebrated his 75th birthday by gathering all to hear one massive 1868 Henry Erben pipe organ in the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott and Prince. A load of awards ago, little boy altar boy Martin Scorsese sang in that choir.
‘River’ runs from Harvey
The drums just keep beating. Today it’s Native Americans after Weinstein’s scalp. Louisiana’s Tunica-Biloxi tribe, weighing in on Harvey’s Jeremy Renner/Elizabeth Olsen indie “Wind River” — which he’d hoped was Oscar-worthy — sent me this tomahawk: “The film now severs ties with the Weinstein Company. All proceeds will go to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center for abused women.”
Perv-asive
A thought: Today’s headlines are “Give me your poor, your hungry, your horny . . .” With streams of dirty filthy old men awash in their dirty filthy old tricks and with daily bulletins on new names groping, grabbing and growling, it’s reached a point where Harvey’s almost coming off as ministerial.
Bits & pieces
Nick Kroll to co-host March 3’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, which precede by a day whatever will stand in for the Oscars since we’re minus Vanity Fair’s longtime guru and the longertime Weinstein hotshots . . .
Dr. Oz’s magazine cutting down. Fewer issues annually . . .
Beauty & Essex grabbed Janelle Monáe and Christina Aguilera for dinner . . .
Be it known outer space starts 80 miles away — less time to reach than for most earthlings to get back to their national capitals.
Bloomingdale’s. A lady shopper: “I’m going to Florida, and I’d like to see a bathing suit in my size.” Replied the sales rep: “Yeah, so would I.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.