The sexiest cannibal film ever: Bones and All’s Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell on its meaning, and Mark Rylance on his young co-stars’ rise

For Timothée Chalamet, Bones and All is ‘a metaphor about addiction’; for his Canadian co-star Taylor Russell “the story felt so inherently loving’

Chalamet talks about reuniting with Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino. Mark Rylance, who plays a cannibal loner, offers his take on his co-stars

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Taylor Russell as Maren and Timothée Chalamet as Lee in a still from Bones and All, a cannibal romance directed by Luca Guadagnino. Mark Rylance co-stars. Photo: Yannis Drakoulidis/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Published: 4:15am, 23 Nov 2022Updated: 1:04pm, 23 Nov 2022

As odd as it might sound, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All might just be the sexiest cannibal film ever made. That’s what happens when you cast Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell as your leads.

Ever since Chalamet starred in Guadagnino’s Oscar-winning Call Me by Your Name in 2017, he’s been causing hysteria wherever he goes. At his new film’s recent Milan premiere, local police shut down the red carpet over safety concerns because of the huge numbers of fans who’d gathered to catch a glimpse of him.

“I mean, he’s obviously in that whirlwind of a generation, feeling that he’s expressing something for them or with them, I guess,” says Mark Rylance, the Oscar-winning British star of Bridge of Spies, who features with Chalamet in Bones and All. “He seems to be dealing with it very well. He has a lovely, open character, and is very, very serious.”

Certainly Chalamet is studious when it comes to his work, talking about watching influential lovers-on-the-run films like Bonnie and Clyde and Terrence Malick’s Badlands, which he’d never seen until he shot Bones and All.

Russell, who made a big impression in the 2019 film Waves, may not be at the Chalamet level yet, but it can only be a matter of time. “She is on a kind of escalator,” adds Rylance. “She’s not walking up the steps, she’s being powered to steps on the next floor.”