“CNN & Variety Town Hall Event: Timothée Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey” reached 8.35 million views worldwide across all platforms. Approximately 5.13 million people in the United States consumed exclusive interview content, and the remaining 3.22 million people were international participants.
CNN aired the interview on February 21st. 7 p.m. ET/PT — drew 453,000 viewers, 57,000 of whom were in the key 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen. The full conversation was also available on CNN’s streaming platform and Variety’s YouTube page.
The “Town Hall” clip was a big driver of social media traffic, reaching 46.29 million views across all Variety platforms. Instagram and Facebook topped the list with 20.35 million, followed by TikTok with 14.54 million and X with 11.4 million.
Saturday night’s broadcast, filmed in front of students at the University of Texas at Austin, featured a reunion between Chalamet and McConaughey, who played son and father in 2014’s “Interstellar.” During the approximately 90-minute roundtable discussion, the two talked about their memories of acting in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi blockbuster “Marty Supreme,” for which Chalamet was nominated for an Oscar, and took questions from the audience.
During the chat, Chalamet told McConaughey that Interstellar is his “favorite movie” he’s ever been a part of, adding that he thinks McConaughey’s Cooper is “the greatest role.”
“I know you came off ‘Dallas Buyers Club,’ but for me that movie was the starting point for how you acted on set and how seriously you and Christopher Nolan took this movie,” Chalamet said. “That gave me a license. Once you get out of high school, it’s hard to take yourself so seriously. Sometimes you feel like you’re wasting your time, or you’re stuck, or you’re feeling something. And then you have a yoga mat and you’re working out on set or you’re sleeping. It was so weird for me, but I can’t thank you enough for being warm to me even though I had no reason to be warm to you at that time. It changed my mind. ”
McConaughey politely replied, “Thank you, dude. You were so warm and accessible. I remember you being so feverishly curious at the time. You seemed like you were figuring things out, but you were working your way through whatever you were dealing with. And I think you were kind of at a loss. You were making a choice about music and someone was putting pressure on you to go, ‘Go over here.’ ”
Watch “CNN and Variety Town Hall Event: Timothée Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey” below.
