Who Is Timothée Chalamet And How Did He End Up Starring In Dune?
Here's everything you need to know about Timothée Chalamet before you see him Dune in 2020.
Timothée Chalamet isn’t a household name, at least not yet. But the young actor has been quietly making a name for himself in Hollywood since he burst onto the scene twelve years ago. Now he’s the star of the upcoming sci-fi movie Dune, and his name is everywhere.
Here’s everything you need to know about Timothée Chalamet before you see him Dune in 2020.
He’s Not French
With a name like Timothée Chalamet you would expect him to be an international movie star. While his name is decidedly French, Chalamet was actually born in America (New York City, to be exact) to his French father Marc Chalamet and American mother Nicole Flender.
It was New York where Chalamet spent his formative years. He attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where he dated Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon for a few years before the pair went their separate ways.
Timothée Chalamet then moved on to Columbia University after high school, but that lasted the actor just one year. He transferred over to New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study so better pursue his acting career and that seemed to work.
Timothée Chalamet Becomes An Actor
Timothée Chalamet got his start in film on a couple of short film projects but his first real role came on the TV series Law & Order. He moved on to a TV movie called Loving Jake, then found himself in recurring roles on the TV series Royal Pains and Homeland, where he played the vice president’s son with a tragically explosive ending to his character. He was seen next in another TV movie Trooper and then his first feature the little-seen Men, Women, & Children.
Timothée Chalamet’s first big-budget film came when Christopher Nolan tapped him to play a young Tom in the big science fiction hit Interstellar. As many of Nolan’s films have been known to do, it was a big hit, bringing in millions at the box office while also giving Chalamet some time in the spotlight. It definitely helped.
The next couple of years saw Timothée Chalamet build his feature film resume. He was in Worst Friends, One and Two, The Adderall Diaries, Love the Coopers, and Miss Stevens before his breakout role that truly put him on the map.
Timothée Chalamet Makes Love To Armie Hammer
Next up for Chalamet was the Luca Guadagnino drama Call Me By Your Name, a movie that also starred Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger, Hotel Mumbai). In it, Chalamet played a 17-year old, Elio, who is living in Italy in the 1980s. While there, he falls in love with an older man (played by Hammer) who has come to Italy to be a research assistant to Elio’s father.
The movie is notable for a few things, mainly the love scenes between Chalamet and Hammer. In fact, during an interview on the Ellen DeGeneres, Timothée Chalamet explained for his very first ever love scene with Hammer, where they had to kiss passionately in a field, they had to repeat the scene so many times that Hammer’s beard ended up giving Chalamet friction burn.
Another couple more things that were notable during the film’s production was the fact that Timothée Chalamet, who speaks a fluent French, had to learn Italian for his part. Not only that, he also learned how to play both the guitar and piano for his role as Enio. Impressive.
His role opened eyes. It opened the eyes of the Golden Globe, SAG Award, BAFTA Award, and Academy Awards, for which he was nominated as Best Actor for all. Unfortunately, he didn’t take home any of those awards, but he did win the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor. The success has given talk of a sequel, which now seems to be a reality. It was announced that Find Me is the title with both Timothée Chalamet and Hammer reprising their roles and Luca Guadagnino back in the director’s chair.
Courting Controversy
Timothée Chalamet has made his name in other roles also. He followed Call Me By Your Name with Lady Bird and Hostiles. Then he was seen in Beautiful Boy and then came the controversy when he starred in a Woody Allen movie, A Rainy Day in New York which has yet to see the light of day.
It caused such controversy in his camp that Chalamet decided to speak of it on his Instagram. He explained that he couldn’t talk about his decision to work with Allen due to contract obligations but he went on to say, “I don’t want to profit from my work on the film, and to that end, I am going to donate my entire salary to three charities: TIME’S UP, The LGBT Center in New York, and RAINN.” Here is his lengthy post.
Timothée Chalamet followed the Allen movie with The King, then starred again with his Lady Bird co-star Saoirse Ronan in Little Women.
Timothée Chalamet In Dune
Continuing to push his career, Timothée Chalamet has jumped aboard the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic remake of Dune. He stars as Paul Atreides and is joined by an all-star cast which includes Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, and Dave Bautista.
The trailer for Timothée Chalamet’s new movie can be seen below.
As he steps in to lead his first big blockbuster, Timothée Chalamet’s career seems destined to grow. The 24-year old actor has already proven he can handle just about any part given to him, even if it means acting opposite a giant, hungry sandworm.
