How is it possible that one of the most attractive actors of Hollywood felt at the beginning of his career the rejection of the Mecca of Cinema due to his physical complexion? It is possible. No one is free from the extreme demands imposed by the entertainment industry. We speak in these lines of Timothée Chalametthe postmodern heartthrob among heartthrobs. He has such a power of attraction, on the screen and on the red carpets, that he cannot help but turn all eyes towards him. Will it be your savoir faire? Franco-American, born in New York, has already given up on losing the battle to have his last name pronounced correctly. His face and style leave no one indifferent. At twenty-eight years oldhas climbed all the steps that lead directly to the Olympus of the Stars: he received an Oscar nomination for the award-winning Call me By your Name, a film that marked a before and after in his career; but he also has two nominations for the Golden Globe, four for the Screen Actors Guild Awards and five for the Film Critics Awards. However, at the beginning of his career he had many ‘buts’.
© Getty ImagesHe told it on the Apple Music 1 program, The Zane Lowe Show in this period in which he is dedicated body and soul to the promotion A Complete Unknown, the film that will arrive in Spain in February 2025, and that is dedicated to the charismatic figure of Bob Dylan. Chalamet It’s Dylan thanks to the magic of cinema. In this context, he has spoken freely about all the pressures he experienced at the beginning of his career in Hollywood due to his extremely thin build. He did not comply with the canons of the Mecca of Cinema and this caused him to lose roles. This was not the best of beginnings away from his beloved New York. The insecurity It began to take over him and he suffered in each of the auditions he attended.
© Gotham‘You have to get fat’
“If I did a casting for ‘The Maze Runner’ or ‘Divergent,’ movies like that that were all the rage at the beginning of my career, the answer was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body.’ I had a representative call me and tell me, not aggressively: ‘You have to get fat’”.
Timothée Chalamet is a little over 1.80, but he usually does not exceed seventy kilos, so his build has nothing to do with that of muscular actors in action movies. Faced with rejections, he did not give up the battle or throw in the towel: his passion for performing was stronger than his fears. He looked for his vein, the crack through which he could sneak into the big leagues of Hollywood without having to subject his body to great transformations. His genetics were his genetics and he did not want to contradict him. He discovered that there was a type of movies, a type of roles, that suited him like a glove, the movies more personal or intimate: “’Call Me by Your Name’ or ‘Beatiful Boy’ or ‘Lady Bird’, ‘Little Women’, ‘Miss Stevens’, ‘Hot Summer Nights’… They were smaller budget films, but very… I don’t know how to say it… enjoyable films that started in this theatrical space. This is where I found my rhythmmy confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it.”
© Mike MarslandHe defended his identity and won. Currentlyproducers and directors raffle him off to star in their projects. During his acting work to step into the shoes of Bob Dylan, he discovered that he had many things in common with the Minnesota singer-songwriter and poet. He took advantage of these aspects to build his character. For example, Chalamet, who took his first steps in 2012 in a television series, homeland, Since his beginnings he had felt ‘a stranger’: “I have had a strange life experience, but I can identify with some of the things that (Bob Dylan) went through. Bob wanted to be an R&R star, with references like Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, the type of musicians who reached children in the late 1950s. Likewise, I wanted to be a great film actor.”
Thanks to these points of coincidence with the trajectory of the 2016 Nobel Prize in LiteratureTimothée Chalamet gained confidence to face this new interpretive challenge: “It has been the most unique challenge I have taken on, but what has given me the most confidence has been doing all the music live,” the actor pointed out. For the movie, I had to learn thirteen songs or something like that; although, in total, it could touch thirty. “I also worked with a harmonica coach for five years.” The muses, as Picasso said, have to find working.
© Getty ImagesThe attractiveness of Chalamet
Given all of the above, and analyzing the care with which he chooses his projects to ‘flow’ as he likes, Timothée Chalamet has far overcome those first obstacles of Hollywood, the land in which, if you allow it, they can make you disown your own body. Faced with those who told him to stop physically being who he was to achieve his dream, the young actor ended up teaching a lesson: could fulfill his dreamand continue being who he was, as long as he selected the roles and projects that best suited what he had decided to do with his career.
To properly understand Chalamet’s dimension in Hollywood, several must be taken into account. characteristics of your life: Raised in a bilingual (English/French) home, in which they embraced both American and European culture, the fashionable actor was born and raised in New York. “I wouldn’t be the actor I am without New York,” he declared. Furthermore, he knows himself perfectly. He knows which foot he limps on and what their strengths and weaknesses are. This makes him strong in a jungle of vanities: “I have a natural ‘me against the world’ mentality, and I have been fighting against it since I was thirteen years old. I feel like it has only taken me to lonely, angry places.”
© Mike PontTimothée is also clear about what he wants to convey with his life and work. To do this, use all the tools at your hand, especially non-verbal language and the language of fashion. The latter has become one of its hallmarks, because there is no longer a self-respecting red carpet that does not feature the daring, the avant-garde, the pure fun and flirtation of the incomparable Laurie de Little Women (2019). As a curious fact, the costume director of this film, Jacqueline Durran, had no qualms in confessing that Chalamet had played a fundamental role in choosing the clothes that his character would wear: “Timothée contributed so much to the way in which we build the ‘looks’. (…) When we were trying them on I always asked him how he would wear them (…) He is a very iconic type of boy and one of the most stylish people I have been able to work with.” It is enough to review his time at the MET GALA to realize that he is not fashionable: it’s fashionlike it or not, and believe it.
© Getty ImagesThe world of fashion, doubly at your feet
One of his greatest stylistic darings was in 2022, during the Venice Film Festivalwhen he appeared with a jumpsuit red with bare back. Perhaps it was a way of saying, at the peak of his career, that what they had one day made him ugly and wanted to change, that extremely thin body, was now applauded and admired throughout the world.
At the moment, it is the nominated (he has not yet displayed any of Hollywood’s most coveted statuettes in his home), but he has plenty of talent and ambition to win awards. As for his love life, his secrecy has not been enough for him to transcend the name of the celebrities with whom he has been linked: Lourdes Leon –Madonna’s daughter with whom he shared the Institute– to the most high-profile of his relationships, Lily-Rose Depp (from 2018 to 2020), although he currently maintains a discreet courtship with Kylie Jennerconfirmed with the movie kiss that took place in the middle of a Beyoncé concert.
© Getty ImagesThe fashion world has surrendered at his feet and he has surrendered to the charm of two of the most sought-after models of the moment, Depp and Jenner. He knew how to defend who he was when no one believed in him. After betting on intimate and independent cinemalow budget, those who had closed the doors to him opened them and he played unforgettable roles in films like Dune and, above all, Wonka. Today, Timothée Chalamet can put his finger on it: you have to be very self-confident, or work harder than anyone else in that aspect, to survive and stay in the Mecca of Cinema.
© Gotham