When Natalie Portman's Elizabeth Berry — a famous Hollywood actress — first arrives at the Atherton-Yoo residence in Todd Haynes' May December, to shadow matriarch Gracie (Julianne Moore) to play her in an upcoming movie, you're left wondering what all the fuss is. What's so interesting about this idyllic family, white picket as they come; why is this woman getting the biopic treatment? Your curiosity is only further piqued when a box of shit arrives at the compound gates. More so when we're told that this is a regular occurrence.
And then the penny drops. Gracie met her husband, Joe, when she was 36, and he was 13, a newly pubescent teenager. They were caught having sex in the pet store they worked in, spurring a flurry of tabloid scandal, loosely inspired by the real-life case of Mary Kay Letourneau in the mid '90s (a former teacher and convicted sex offender). The forgotten human element: Joe himself, caught in a perpetual state of arrested development, his teenhood stolen by grooming and abuse that, nauseatingly, continues to the present moment.
He's portrayed by Charles Melton, best known to audiences in the U.S. as Reggie in addictive go-to-binge-watcher Riverdale. But May December has seen Melton's stock shoot into the stratosphere, bagging him major awards from the Critics' Choice and Gotham awards, putting him among the front of the pack for the Oscars race.
Here, he speaks to GQ about his mum, May December's most heartbreaking scenes, and how much the movie was influenced by the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau story.
GQ: You've said that the reaction to May December that meant most to you was your mum's. What has she made of your awards success?
Charles Melton: She's really proud of me. My mom's always been proud of me. I think I could call my mom and just be like, ‘Mom, guess what? I won the water award.’ And she'd lose her mind. She's in LA right now, and I'm a little sad that I only got to spend a couple of days with her. But I'll see her on Friday, for half a day, before she heads back to Kansas. I'm so grateful for how supportive and loving my parents have been.
Which is fitting when you're the incumbent boyfriend of the internet
You were pretty emotional during your [Critics' Choice Awards] speech. Talk to me about that moment, and why it was affecting for you.
Words carry weight, especially words that mean something so much to me. And to say that with my mom, looking at me, and me looking at her, made me emotional. I felt so much encouragement in that room in the spaces and the pauses that I took, because I didn't wanna cry. And I didn't expect it to be like that. To be honest with you, I prefer to be emotional with my loved ones. And my family. Or when I'm on a set, and the character takes me there.
One thing that's so notable about Joe in May December is that gawky physicality you give him — like a 13-year-old trapped in a grownup body, performing adulthood. I'm interested in how you found that.
I found it early on throughout the audition process. [It was about] understanding repression, arrested development; how trauma can live in the body. And Todd's faith in me really encouraged me to exist as this character.
There's this kind of protection that Joe carries with his body. He doesn't want to take up space. His shoulders are hunched. He's almost… he just doesn't want to be there, he doesn't know if he can be there. There's so many ideas of identity in these roles that Joe takes upon in order to be, quote unquote, an adult.
A lot of people, in certain cultures — anywhere — would say that when you have a kid, you're an adult. Because now it's not your life. You have to think about your kid's life. So during the development of this teenage boy, how would that transpire and translate? And [screenwriter Samy Burch's] script laid out such an expansive exploration of all these characters. There was so much between the text. So much to pull from and be inspired by. Todd had a list of, like, 30 films that he sent to everyone…
Like Persona, and other Bergmans.
Yeah, and there was [John Schlesinger's] Sunday Bloody Sunday, [a lot] more. I had some films that I looked at. I'm really inspired by Korean cinema, I love Korean cinema. There's a lot of Korean actors that I'm drawn to — there's a lot of physicality in their performance. Or even Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, and Christian Bale in Velvet Goldmine. I love this restraint. I love this holding back of something, when there's something more than just what's being emoted.
The scene that comes to mind for me is when Joe speaks to his dad. It's the childish way he holds a cigarette. He's never smoked in his life, but it just seems to him like a thing dads do.
I think you might be the first person that's brought up that scene. It's such a beautiful scene, because you see Joe coming to his father, and we get a glimpse into the relationship that they have, and whether his father maybe wasn't as present. Though not much is being said, you know, Joe is trying to emulate or connect with his father.
The Riverdale actor is earning serious acclaim for his turn in May December—but we're equally impressed with his shoes.
How did you interpret Joe's relationship with his dad?
I looked at my own dad, in my own life. My dad who was in the army for twenty-plus years. He did everything he could for me and my sisters. And Joe is so fascinating to me because he does all of that and he doesn't think of himself at all. And that's a little heartbreaking. How can someone communicate that without saying anything? It's in the body.
It's fascinating to watch the audience perception of the film evolve over time. Early reactions, especially after Cannes [the film festival, where it premiered], centred on how funny it is. Which it is. But since it came out on Netflix [in the U.S.], there has been more attention on its tragedy and darkness.
There was no comedy while filming it, while cameras were rolling. You can't play the comedy. Tragedy can be comedic sometimes, because it's easier to laugh in the face of tragedy than it is to cry in that moment. The body reacts before the mind can process.
Like Joe, in the scene on the roof with his son, is having a breakdown and forming words for the first time, the questions he's never had the chance to ask himself. And he's feeling things that are rising to the surface. That is heartbreaking. It was a heartbreaking day for me to film. And it's funny when, in some audiences that I watch this film with, people are chuckling and laughing. And I'm like, ‘woah.’ But my job as an actor isn't to play for the audience, but to tell the character's story.
There also seems to be a lot more interest in the Mary Kay Letourneau case, which loosely inspired the film. Did you use it to inform Joe at all?
You know, there's so much source material, and so many different inspirations and performances to look at, but it really started with the script. It was brilliant. There were so many different clues in Samy's script to find, that really helped inform Joe, which was Samy's inspired story, which was fictional.
Of course, of course, it's fiction. I actually didn't know about the Mary Kay Letourneau case when I watched it for the first time. But I'm curious nevertheless. Did you ever want to reach out to Vili Fualaau for preparation — kind of like Natalie's character with Julianne's in the movie?
No, I just wanted to stick to what Samy did, and create Joe with the blueprint she gave me in the script.
May December is releasing to Sky Cinema on 8 December.