True to form, when Cartier offered him an evening to celebrate his appointment as one of the Academy’s five picks for Best Actor of 2024, Timothée swerved on an atypical brand-ambassador dinner, opting for something much livelier, more unexpected, and gleefully random: poker night.
Cut to a posh evening in a spacious suite on the sixth floor of the famed LA hotel—three full poker tables complete with dealers, bartenders, a DJ playing everything from Sinatra to “Let the Beat Build,” and a rooftop patio that included a cigar station—filled with friends both close and equally famous, including Tobey Maguire, Kevin Hart, Rich Paul, Nathan FielderTheo von, Kid Cudiand Kylie Jenner, with me as the outlier taking it all in.
The mood never rose above chill, so much so that at first you’d be forgiven for assuming the poker of it all was just thematic window dressing. Timothée, in a full leather Chrome Hearts fit, shot the shit with Hart and Paul, as more of his guests milled around. I scanned the room for the most fascinating person on the guest list: a hard-core poker coach, who was described to me as being like “a character from The Penguin.” (Sadly, I did not make his acquaintance.)
