Amelia Dimoldenberg only needs 60 seconds with Timothée Chalamet.
In her decade of hosting the popular YouTube show “Chicken Shop Date,” she hasn’t yet casually, awkwardly flirted with Chalamet over nuggets under bright fluorescent lights. Sunday, though, she might get her chance: Dimoldenberg will be on the Oscars red carpet as an official correspondent and social media ambassador for the show. Chalamet is nominated for best actor, for his turn as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” It could happen.
But Dimoldenberg, 31, knows as well as anyone that you can’t really control what happens, or whom you get to talk to, on a red carpet — especially one as busy as the Oscars’. This will be her second year in the position. Last year, she riffed with Billie Eilish, flirted with Taylor Zakhar Perez, talked about falling with Jennifer Lawrence and played rock, paper, scissors with Dwayne Johnson.
“I love the challenge of it — having 90 seconds with someone and you have to get something incredible,” she said. “There’s a conveyor belt of celebrities, so if you love celebrity interviews it’s kind of the best place to be.”
She has a long list of hopefuls this year, including nominees like Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande (whom she’s never met), Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg and Mikey Madison.
Sometimes, the celebrity is familiar with her work and her character; sometimes they’re not. That character, an exaggerated version of herself, is a celebrity interviewer who is actually on a date with her subjects: She’s at turns desperate and overly confident, flirting in what she’s described as a very British way of making the other person think you don’t like them.
In the show, she makes the interactions even more awkward, and funnier, in the edit. On a red carpet, there are no such crutches. The key, she said, is going with the flow and making her interviewees feel comfortable no matter what.
