Charles Melton has, it seems safe to say, just had a life-changing experience. It’s not merely the remarkable, heartbreaking, Oscar-contending work that the actor does in the new film May December (now in select theaters, and hitting Netflix on December 1). Starring as the repressed longtime husband of the woman he first started an affair with when he was 13 years old—she was in her late 30s—Melton subtly embodies that trauma with a hauntingly awkward physicality and a kind of vocal timidity. He holds his own against two Oscar winners in Julianne Moore, playing his profoundly damaged wife, Gracie, and Natalie Portman, playing the actor assigned to portray Gracie in an upcoming movie. He effectively reintroduces himself, coming into the project best known for roles on teen projects like Riverdale and The Sun Is Also a Star.

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But in speaking with the 32-year-old Melton, it’s clear the role’s impact on him began long before he’d even booked the role, starting with the chance to audition. On this week’s Little Gold Men (listen or read below), Melton describes the six-week process of preparing a self-tape, then taking in notes from director Todd Haynes, as the best experience of his career. From there he got to simply absorb: watching some of the most lauded actors alive at work. Taking viewing recommendations from Haynes, ranging from Ingmar Bergman to Mike Nichols to Wong Kar-Wai. Taking a nugget from a Bryan Cranston interview to inform his preparation approach. Immersing himself in Heath Ledger’s Brokeback Mountain work to get a master class in an empathetic, nuanced performance of repression. Digging into his own complex upbringing and adult celebrity to better understand a character whose childhood was taken away from him, and whose adulthood got tracked in trashy tabloids.

All of that goes into what Melton brings to May December’s Joe—and, as we discuss over our wide-ranging conversation, what made this the perfect moment to take a huge career leap.

Vanity Fair: How did you get involved here?

Charles Melton: It was the summer of last year. I got a self-tape request from my team, and I saw that it was May December, directed by Todd Haynes, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. My heart dropped with excitement and that led to me self-taping for the next five days. I spent six hours every day just trying to get that one tape, completely exhausting myself, and that was the start of the journey of preparation because I felt immediately connected to the story of Joe and what he represented—just the complexity that he had, staying with that for almost six weeks before I found out that I booked the role.

It was one self-tape. Then a week later, I got notes from my team saying, “These are the notes from Todd Haynes.” I was like, “No way!” [Laughs.] And then I sent in another self-tape, and then I flew out to New York City a few weeks later to do a chemistry read with Julie [Moore] and Todd in person. And I remember standing outside the casting door. Lights were coming through the cracks of the door outside, and I heard them talking about the scene and how it was going to work, and my heart was beating out of my chest. Then I walked in, and the next thing I knew I was walking out with Laura Rosenthal, the casting director. “What just happened?” Then it was about a week before I found out I booked it.

That is quite a process. Had you ever, just with the initial self-tape experience alone, done something that intensive to go out for a role?

I always like to try to, but there was so much in between the text, to really explore this character. I remember while self-taping, I'm like, “This is either really bad, or maybe it'...okay. I don't know?” I'd never had the chance to dive in like that before.

It sounds like you felt yourself taking a bit of a risk, a bit of a swing. At that point, when you're thinking about this character, and there's so much to get into with him, what are those early things that you're figuring out about Joe?

I have a couple of coaches that I work with, one for script analysis, and another coach where we really just dive into the minutiae of the emotions and everything. It's this holistic conversation about who this person is. There's this sense of loneliness and this repression that I really was drawn to with Joe. When it comes to a character, you come to it with empathy, and you bring bits and pieces of your own experience and humanity and the humanity around you to inform whatever choices you make. I was thinking about this internalized weight, this tragedy in a way that Joe had. It made me think about, Was there ever a time in my life where I felt this just intense sense of responsibility and stepping up to the plate and showing up?

It made me think about my dad, who I love dearly, and I wouldn't change anything. I grew up an army brat. My mom's Korean, my father met her in Korea; I'm first generation on my mom's side, and my dad served 20 plus years while I was growing up. I remember we were stationed in Illesheim, Germany, at this military base. I was 11 years old and my dad sat me down the night before he left just talking about integrity and honor of how I need to take care of my two younger sisters and my mom, and how our Jack Russell Terrier, Diamond Jack, was going to be by my side—to show up for them and be a good big brother and a good son. This was the night before he left to go to the Desert Storm for a year.

When you're a kid and you're that young and your hero's giving you this speech and really asking you to step up to the plate, you are just excited. You're like, “Okay, yeah, I'll do it.” You'll put on that shoe that's a little too big for you at first that you'll eventually grow into it. Though the circumstance with Joe is completely different, that informed certain choices and thinking about the different things that Joe carries internally, and how that would look externally.

Yes, to me he walks in the movie like an old man and a child at the same time, in the way you do it. It's so specific, and I find that personal part of it really fascinating. Did you have a sense that that physicality was coming naturally to you, especially as you got into filming?

Yeah. I was thinking a lot about repression, and just not so much just the feeling, but how that would manifest through the body. How you can communicate so much by so little. If you see someone in the corner kind with their shoulders hunched and walking around and keeping to themself and not really taking up so much space, you feel sympathy for them. You feel kind of bad for them.

Everything comes before Joe. His kids, his wife, his work. Even his voice. Certain technical things I would think about—I can be really animated, as we're seeing right now talking. [Laughs] I move my mouth a lot, you see my teeth a lot, but Joe's mouth doesn't move that much because it's kind of almost like this restriction that kind of stays up here a little bit, above the collarbone and from the chin down—the throat area, the neck area—and it really stems from… [Bangs stomach] Yeah, like I'm banging on my stomach.

The exciting thing about this movie to me is you have three lead actors really making big choices like that. Obviously with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, viewers have gotten to observe that in them more in the past. For you, this is your first time in a movie like this. What was it like, knowing you're in a space where you can make these choices, and then have these two other actresses you’re going between in the story?

We had 23 days to film, so every minute mattered and we did hang out offset and it was a very kind of close, tight-knit family for those 23 days. I learned so much, man. Letting go of whatever idea I have about a scene early on and just being open to whatever that process is like when we get on set and how we all trusted in Todd. To see Julie for her character, doing those flower arrangements—she was taking those classes, and she was taking baking classes. They're very technical as far as their preparation, where it's so fine-tuned. That's just a part of them putting everything together—and when we would do the scene, it was just next level. [Pause] I'm in awe talking about this. I can't believe I'm talking about them! It's pretty great.

So what did that kind of technical prep look like for you? I know you’ve discussed the weight gain for the part, but I would guess you did a lot before landing in Savannah for production.

Yeah. I'd wake up early, I'd meditate.I'd eat a very big burrito from the Los Feliz Cafe. I would do maybe three hours of work with my coaches. Then I just watched films. I digested so many films. Todd had a list going around with The Graduate, Persona, Manhattan, Sunday Bloody Sunday. I kept on going back to Brokeback Mountain and what Heath Ledger did in that performance. Completely different experience from what Joe did, but he has this repression, this internal grit that really inspired me. Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love; Tony Leung, who does so much without saying anything at all, and there's this pathos and just kind of getting to a place where I was so comfortable in my own body to really then let go. Then a lot of walks, a lot of acupuncture therapy—all the good stuff.

It's also really emotional work, so I would imagine that was important.

Yeah, for sure. I remember watching this interview and Bryan Cranston was talking about—I'm butchering what he says, it's not word for word, but—being a craftsman of your own life, really. So then when you do come to the character, you have this full sense of who you are, then you're able to, without any opinion or judgment, come to the character with empathy and transform into whatever story you're telling. I think I elaborated. His was very short. [Laughs]

“This is what I got from this sentence you said.”

Yeah, from the five words he said, this is what I got. [Laughs] But this was the first time in my career where I was like, “Wow, I feel like I left everything in my room, and if I don't book this, that's okay.” Those six weeks of my own personal discovery while just trying to understand this character in self-taping was the best experience in my career. I was like, “This is the way I want to work” I discovered you can work like this. I learned a lot about myself outside of all of that.

The other element I wanted to ask you about a little bit was fame. In this film, Joe and Gracie are leading very different kinds of public lives from an actor, but they still have this public-private division that's really important to the way we understand them. And, of course, this is not your first role. You were on a little show called Riverdale, where attention can skyrocket pretty quickly. How did you experience that and did that inform the way you thought at all about this character’s public life?

That's a great question. I'm so grateful for Riverdale—I mean, it changed my life. Before I booked that show, I was walking dogs, working Chinese takeout, before I started working 10 months out of the year for the next seven years. I got so much from that show. The fact that we filmed so many episodes in a short amount of time to where every minute mattered for 10 months, and working with over 100 directors, really helped when I came to working those 23 days of filming May December.

When you talk about the notoriety that was gained from being on the show, yeah—I think about Joe. Joe being a part of this tabloid culture and this scandal and being told all these things about himself from public opinion. In spite of all of that, he would come home to his child, to his newborn son or daughter. What would that look like not 10 years down the road, but 20 years down the road? That's where we find Joe. This culture, these people probing into his personal life—how that created this man and this exterior that he has to really survive through. It just really opened the door just to really think about he effects of how you can be affected by being in the limelight.

Did the limelight affect you at all?

I've done a lot of work just to stay grounded. This morning I woke up and I played video games, and my mom’s here. It's all perception and what people think of you and breaking those walls. Am I doing this because I want to prove people wrong and show them something different? Or am I doing this because I want to prove the people that love me right and because I know I'm capable of doing this? So it's like, what is fueling that?

Riverdale ended earlier this year. You’re obviously beyond it here, but did you ever feel stuck in the teen-actor box?

Before I booked Riverdale, I dreamed for an opportunity like that and it came. But I think the sense of wanting to do more with your work and your work evolving is great. I don't think I could be here talking with you now if it wasn't for many things in my life, especially that show, that really helped shape the way that I would like to work professionally and personally. People can get upset about doing something for so long. I understand that, but what were you doing before? I'm like, Charles, what were you doing before? [Laughs]

So many of the people that went through Riverdale are just so talented. It's not so much what the people outside of us think about what we're capable of doing; it's just like, if you believe in that, then you can do that. When the opportunity presents itself, you can show up for it—and not live in your own box.

This interview has been edited and condensed.