Sufjan Stevens declined role to narrate Call Me by Your Name

Singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens turned down the chance to be part of critically acclaimed movie Call Me By Your Name, because he was convinced his casting would be a “mistake”.
The musician was first approached by director Luca Guadagnino about contributing original songs to the coming-of-age drama’s soundtrack, but after hitting it off, the filmmaker invited Sufjan to lend his voice to the story as a narrator, portraying an older version of Elio Perlman, the Italian teenager played onscreen by Timothee Chalamet.
Luca also suggested Sufjan should sing one of his tunes on camera as the gay love story unfolded, but the 42-year-old didn’t think his acting in the movie was needed.
“I got back to him and I said, ‘I think this voiceover is a mistake, and I think the interruption of me singing the song is a mistake,” Sufjan told Deadline.com. “I think he was just thinking out loud. I don’t know if he was really committed to the idea. So I said, ‘I’ll write you some songs, but that’s all I think you need from me’. And he agreed.
“When I saw the first edit, he said, ‘You were right, this doesn’t need a monologue or an interruption’.”
The soundtrack features three tunes by the multi-instrumentalist – a remix of his 2010 release Futile Devices, and new songs Visions of Gideon, and Mystery of Love.
Call Me by Your Name, which co-stars Armie Hammer as Elio’s American lover, has won high praise from critics, landing three Golden Globe nominations, including one for Best Motion Picture – Drama, as well as a Screen Actors Guild nod for Chalamet.