Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Hal Chalamet is an American and French actor. After rising to prominence in the late 2010s, he established himself as a leading actor of the early 2020s. Known for his work in a diverse range of blockbusters and independent films, he is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Actor Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Critics' Choice Awards, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards, six British Academy Film Awards, and a Grammy Award. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $2.3 billion worldwide.
Chalamet began his career in television, appearing in the drama series Homeland. In 2014, while a student at Columbia University, he made his film debut in the comedy-drama Men, Women & Children and appeared in Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Interstellar. Chalamet came to international attention with the lead role of a lovestruck teenager in Luca Guadagnino's coming-of-age film Call Me by Your Name, earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and becoming the third-youngest nominee in the category. He gained further recognition for his supporting roles in Greta Gerwig's films Lady Bird and Little Women, as well as for portraying Nic Sheff in the biopic Beautiful Boy.
Chalamet cemented his leading man status by starring in big-budget films, portraying Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's science fiction films Dune and Dune: Part Two, and Willy Wonka in the musical fantasy film Wonka. He earned consecutive Academy Award nominations for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in the biographical drama A Complete Unknown and his starring role in Josh Safdie's sports comedy film Marty Supreme ; the former earned him the SAG Award for Best Actor, while the latter won him the Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, making him the youngest recipient of each award.
On stage, Chalamet starred in John Patrick Shanley's autobiographical play Prodigal Son in 2016, for which he won a Lucille Lortel Award and gained a nomination for a Drama League Award. Offscreen, he has been labeled as a sex symbol and a fashion icon.
Early life and education
Timothée Chalamet was born on December 27, 1995, in Manhattan, and grew up in the federally subsidized artists' building Manhattan Plaza in Hell's Kitchen under the Mitchell–Lama program. His older sister, Pauline Chalamet, is an actress. His mother, Nicole Flender, is a third-generation New Yorker, of half Russian Jewish and half Austrian Jewish descent. She is a real estate agent at the Corcoran Group, and a former Broadway dancer. Flender earned her bachelor's degree in French from Yale University, and has been a French teacher and dance teacher.Marc Chalamet, his French father, a New York correspondent for Le Parisien and an editor for UNICEF,
is from Nîmes, France, and is from a Protestant heritage. Chalamet's paternal grandmother, who had moved to France, was originally from Brantford, Ontario. On his mother's side, he is a nephew of husband-and-wife filmmakers and producers Rodman Flender and Amy Lippman. Chalamet's sister has described their family as being "very middle-class".
Chalamet is bilingual in English and French, and holds dual United States and French citizenship through his French father. Growing up, Chalamet spent summers in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a small French village two hours from Lyon, at the home of his paternal grandparents. He stated that his time in France led to cross-cultural ambiguities over his identity. Chalamet attended PS 87 William T. Sherman School for elementary school, and MS 245 The Computer School for middle school, later transferring to the selective Delta program at MS 54 Booker T. Washington Middle School, which he described as miserable due to the lack of a creative outlet within the school's academically rigorous environment.
Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight inspired Chalamet to pursue a career in acting. He applied to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. His acceptance into the school was a turning point in his appreciation for acting. His sophomore-year drama teacher at LaGuardia was so impressed by his audition that he insisted on Chalamet's acceptance into the school, even though he had been rejected in the interview, due to his middle school record, saying: "I gave him the highest score I've ever given a kid auditioning." During high school, Chalamet dated Madonna's daughter Lourdes Leon, a fellow student, for a year. He starred in school musicals as Emcee in Cabaret and Oscar Lindquist in Sweet Charity, graduating in 2013. Chalamet is also a YoungArts alumnus.
After high school, Chalamet, then 17, attended Columbia University for a year, majoring in cultural anthropology, and was a resident of Hartley Hall. He later transferred to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study to pursue his acting career more freely, having found it difficult to assimilate to Columbia directly after filming Interstellar. Upon leaving Columbia, Chalamet moved to Concourse, Bronx. He eventually dropped out of New York University to focus on his acting career and avoid student debt.
Career
2008–2016: Early roles
As a child, Chalamet appeared in several commercials and acted in two horror short films called Sweet Tooth and Clown, before making his television debut on an episode of the long-running police procedural series Law & Order, playing a murder victim. This was followed by a minor role in the television film Loving Leah. In 2011, Chalamet made his stage debut in the Off-Broadway play The Talls, a coming-of-age comedy set in the 1970s, in which he played a sexually curious 12-year-old. The chief theatre critic of New York Daily News wrote: "Chalamet hilariously captures a tween's awakening curiosities about sex." In 2012, he had recurring roles in the drama series Royal Pains and the thriller series Homeland, in which Chalamet played Finn Walden, the rebellious son of the Vice President. Along with the rest of the cast, he was nominated for a SAG Award for Best Ensemble.In 2014, Chalamet made his feature film debut in a minor role in Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children. That same year, he played the role of Tom Cooper, the son of Matthew McConaughey's character, in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. The film received positive reviews, with critics praising the cast's performances, and grossed over $700 million worldwide. A decade later, Chalamet stated that Interstellar was his favorite film he had ever been in up to that point, but shared that at the time he was disappointed because it didn't boost his career as he had assumed it would. Also in 2014, Chalamet had a supporting role in Worst Friends, a comedy which had a limited theatrical release and received positive reviews.
In 2015, Chalamet co-starred in Andrew Droz Palermo's fantasy thriller One & Two, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it received mixed reviews, before its limited theatrical release. His next role was playing the teenage version of James Franco's character, Stephen Elliott, in Pamela Romanowsky's The Adderall Diaries. In his final role of 2015, Chalamet played Charlie Cooper, the sullen grandson of Diane Keaton and John Goodman's characters in the Christmas comedy Love the Coopers, which received negative reviews.
In 2016, Chalamet starred as Jim Quinn in the autobiographical play Prodigal Son at Manhattan Theatre Club. Handpicked by its playwright and director John Patrick Shanley and producer Scott Rudin, Chalamet portrayed a younger Shanley, a misfit Bronx kid in a prestigious New Hampshire prep school set in 1963. His performance was praised and won him the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play, in addition to a nomination for the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance. Chalamet also co-starred opposite Lily Rabe in Julia Hart's Miss Stevens as the troubled student Billy Mitman. Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter described Chalamet's act as "compelling" and "startling", with his character's speech from Death of a Salesman as among the best he has ever seen. Stephen Holden of The New York Times compared him to James Dean.
2017–2020: Breakthrough
After being attached to the project for three years, Chalamet starred in Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name, based on the novel of the same name by André Aciman. The story revolves around Elio Perlman, a young man living in Italy during the 1980s, who falls in love with Oliver, a university student who has come to stay with his family. In preparation, Chalamet learned to speak Italian, as well as to play the piano and guitar. Call Me by Your Name premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim; critics particularly highlighted Chalamet's performance.Olly Richards of Empire wrote: "In a film in which every performance is terrific, Chalamet makes the rest look like they're acting. He alone would make the film worth watching". Jon Frosch of The Hollywood Reporter stated that no performance during the year "felt as emotionally, physically and intellectually alive" and included Chalamet in the magazine's list of the best performances of the year. Time and The New York Times also featured him in such lists. He won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead, and received nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award, BAFTA Award, and Academy Award, all for Best Actor. He is the third-youngest person to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor as well as the youngest since 19-year-old Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms in 1939.
In his second film of 2017, Chalamet played Daniel, a gawky teenager who gets swept up in the drug-dealing business throughout a summer, in Elijah Bynum's directorial debut, Hot Summer Nights. It received a limited theatrical release the following year and generated mixed reviews from critics, though Chalamet received praise from K. Austin Collins of Vanity Fair, who called the "sensitivity" in his performance "something special". Later that year, he played Kyle Scheible, a rich hipster in a band and a love interest of Saoirse Ronan's character in Lady Bird, the solo directorial debut of Greta Gerwig. Critics praised the ensemble cast, with Ty Burr of The Boston Globe taking particular note of Chalamet's "hilarious" performance. In his final film of 2017, Scott Cooper's western Hostiles, Chalamet played a young soldier named Philippe DeJardin, alongside Christian Bale.
In 2018, Chalamet joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Later that year, Chalamet portrayed Nic Sheff, a teenager addicted to methamphetamine who shares a strained relationship with his father, the journalist David Sheff, in the drama Beautiful Boy. Directed by Felix Van Groeningen, the film is based on a pair of memoirs—the elder Sheff's memoir of the same name and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff. Owen Glieberman of Variety drew comparisons with Chalamet's performance in Call Me by Your Name, stating that "Nic, in his muffled millennial James Dean way, skittery and self-involved" is a transformation from the "marvelous directness" he displayed in the role of Elio Perlman. He received nominations for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA award ceremonies.
The following year, Chalamet starred in Woody Allen's romantic comedy A Rainy Day in New York. The Me Too movement prompted a resurgence of the 1992 sexual abuse allegation against Allen. Chalamet said he was unable to answer questions about working with Allen due to his contractual obligations; the Huffington Post obtained a copy of Chalamet's contract which disputed this. Chalamet donated his salary to the charities Time's Up, LGBT Center of New York, and RAINN, and did not promote the film. Allen claimed in his 2020 memoir Apropos of Nothing that Chalamet told Allen's sister Letty Aronson that he only denounced him in an attempt to improve his chances of winning an Academy Award for Call Me by Your Name.
Chalamet next portrayed Henry V of England, a prince who, as a young man, becomes King of England, in David Michôd's Netflix period drama The King, based on several plays from Shakespeare's Henriad. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, "Chalamet does robust work, straightening his lanky posture as he goes, rising up into the role like a man ascendant". In his third film release of 2019, Chalamet portrayed Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, a lovestruck teenager, in Little Women, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel of the same name. Marking his second collaboration with Gerwig and Ronan, the film was acclaimed by critics, two of whomPeter Travers of Rolling Stone and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Postalso praised Chalamet's performance; Travers noted that the actor portrays the role with "innate charm and poignant vulnerability", while Hornaday highlighted his "languidly graceful" performance and its "playful physicality". Chalamet hosted an episode of the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in 2020.