Timothée Chalamet had a difficult time securing roles in big films when he was a young actor.
The 28-year-old revealed to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that his body was a point of criticism.
“If I auditioned for The Maze Runner or Divergent, things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,’” Chalamet told Lowe, per Variety. “I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You got to put on weight,’ basically—not aggressively, but you know.”
Chalamet compared his experience of discovering the right roles for him to Bob Dylan running into his own issues when he was just starting out as a musician in Minnesota. Chalamet plays Dylan in the forthcoming music biopic, A Complete Unknown.
“I found my way into these very personalized movies,” Chalamet said. “For [Dylan], it was folk music. He couldn’t keep a rock-and-roll band because they would all get hired by other kids that had more money, literally, in Minnesota.”
Chalamet took a different path and landed on his “very personal style” with roles in Call Me By Your Name, Beautiful Boy, Lady Bird, Little Women, Miss Stevens, and Hot Summer Nights.
“Those were smaller budget, but very—I don’t know how else to put it — personable movies that started in this theater space. This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it,” Chalamet explained.
He would go on to book his fair share of blockbuster films, like 2023’s Wonka and the Dune franchise, which just saw the release of Dune: Part Two this year. Both had wildly successful opening weekends, with Wonka premiering with $151 million globally and Dune 2 debuting with $182.5 million worldwide.
Chalamet has cemented his status as a major Hollywood talent. With an Oscar nomination, lead roles in billion-dollar franchises like Dune, and a fresh take on Willy Wonka, Chalamet’s star power is undeniable. For these reasons, the 28-year-old star was ranked No.2 on Complex’s 25 Best Actors in Their 20s: Hollywood’s Rising Stars list that was published earlier this month. You can read the full list here.
