Annie Leibovitz’s Vogue Cover Shoot of Timothee Chalamet Raises Eyebrows
For her latest Vogue shoot with star actor Timothée Chalamet, Annie Leibovitz collaborated with NASA by superimposing him on a nebula — but not everyone thinks the cover is out of this world.
The photos for Vogue’s December edition has once again been pilloried online, after Leibovitz’s Anne Hathaway shoot got a similar treatment a few months ago.
“Wow that’s … a horrible cover but proud of you,” writes Jess beneath Chalamet’s Instagram post. “Was this made on PowerPoint?” asks Edward Quintos. The comments on Chalamet’s post are overwhelmingly negative, and it’s no better on Leibovitz’s Instagram page.
“It’s astonishing that this cover cleared every level of Vogue’s approval process,” writes photographer Ian Engelbrecht. Sallyanne Kirk adds, “Legit the worst Vogue cover I’ve ever seen.” Some begged Leibovitz to go back to analog, while many others borrowed a Michael Jackson line by asking, “Annie, are you ok?”
For the photos inside Vogue, Leibovitz’s crew headed to the Nevada desert where they used Michael Heizer’s land art sculpture City — the mile-long installation is the largest contemporary artwork ever built.
Chalamet called his three days in at the City artwork a “totally remote experience” and describes Leibovitz as an “absolute beast.” He says working with her reminded him of collaborations with film directors.
“Sometimes when people become so ubiquitous or iconic, you can lose sight of how much effort goes in. She’s the first one up at 5:30 a.m. You’re coming downstairs, and she’s poring over materials,” Chalamet tells Vogue.
“She almost had a crazy compulsive creative attitude… She wasn’t concerned with anything but getting great stuff, and then I’m sure she went on to the next thing.”
The New York Times says the “desolate” images appear to play off the Dune trilogy, which Chalamet is the star of.
Not everyone was against the images. Priyanka Patthania describes the shoot as “cinematic”, adding that “Annie Leibovitz has always played in the space where portraiture crosses into mythmaking, and this series with Timothée Chalamet for Vogue 2025 feels like a deliberate extension of that lineage.”
Chalamet gave the interview to Vogue to promote his upcoming film Marty Supreme, a film set around ping pong in New York City in the 1950s.
