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Who is Timothée Chalamet? Get To Know The Rising Movie Star

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Casper Libero chapter.

Timothée Chalamet has been all over the place in the last awards seasons, but who is this French-American actor? Timothée is only 24 years old and has already been in more than three award-winning movies, including Greta Gerwig’s latest movie, Little Women. He was born in New York to an American mom and a French dad. He began his acting career on television in 2012, playing the vice-president’s teenage son in the show ‘Homeland’. Two years later, he made his debut on the big screen – first in the drama ‘Men, Women & Children’ and right after, in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’. 

His breakthrough came with the award-winning movie ‘Call Me By Your Name’, which earned the young actor his first Academy Award Nomination. Timothée is also an internet star, he has 7 million followers on Instagram and can be found in many fan accounts’ posts, all over Tumblr, Pinterest, Youtube and Tik Tok. He is kind of the obsession of many young girls – including me – and guys. We just can’t seem to get enough of him. ​

Call Me By Your Name

2017 was a big year for the young actor, he was not only in one, but two, Oscar Best Picture nominated movies: ‘Call Me By Your Name’ and ‘Ladybird’. Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Call Me By Your Name’ was based on the novel of the same name by André Aciman. It tells the story of a young boy, Elio – played by Timothée – and his family in the 1980s in Italy. It follows the romance between Elio and an american university student, Oliver (Armie Hammer), who stays with his family during summer as an assistant to Elio’s dad, a professor. For this movie, Timothée earned many award nominations, including a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, a BAFTA Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor. He was 22 when he got the nomination, making him one of the youngest people to ever be nominated for an Oscar. 

Lady Bird and Beautiful Boy

In Ladybird, he played Kyle, Saoirse Ronan’s Ladybird’s love interest. The movie is a coming-of-age story about a high school senior, Ladybird, and her strained relationship with her mother. For this one, Chalamet also received a lot of praise from the critics. 

In the following year, he starred in ‘Beautiful Boy’ alongside American actor Steve Carell. The movie follows the story of Nic, played by Timothée, a drug-addicted teenager and his relationship with his father, played by Steve Carell. For his performance, the actor earned nominations for Best Supporting Actor at the SAG and BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globes, but not for the Oscars, though many people were expecting it.

A Rainy Day in New York and The King

In 2019, he starred in Woody Allen’s romantic comedy ‘A Rainy Day in New York’. Though, because of sexual assault accusations against Allen, the actor faced some backlash. Timothée ended up donating his salary to the Time’s Up, LGBT Center of New York and RAINN charities. His next role was in Netflix’s period drama ‘The King’, in which he played Henry V of England.

Little Women

His latest movie was the 2019 adaptation of the book ‘Little Women’,  in which he was reunited with Ladybird’s Saoirse Ronan and director Greta Gerwig.  Chalamet played Laurie, the rich boy who lives next door to the March family. Once again, the movie was praised by the critics, having a 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The picture received many award nominations, even an Academy Award for Best Picture, but unfortunately, Timothée didn’t get any. Still, his performance was amazing and had positive reviews.

So, what is next?

After all of these performances, we can certainly say that Timothée is one of the most talented actors of his generation. He can go from playing the lovable boy next door, such as Laurie in ‘Little Women’, to delivering heart wrenching performances as the meth addicted teen in ‘Beautiful Boy’. 

For now, we’re going to have to wait until the end of the year to watch him in his next movie, Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’. A comedy-drama where Timothée will play Zeffirelli, a student revolutionary alongside his old pal, Saoirse Ronan and many other known actors. Then, in December of this year we can expect to see him in ‘Dune’, an epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve. Honestly, I cannot wait to see what else Chalamet goes on to do in his career and I am very excited for his next movies.

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The article above was edited by Mel Trench

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Mariana is a fourth-year Journalism student at Toronto Metropolitan University. She moved to Toronto from São Paulo, Brazil in 2021. Her favourite hobby is watching shows and movies and then spending hours researching, thinking and writing about them.
Giovanna Pascucci

Casper Libero '22

Estudante de Relações Públicas na Faculdade Cásper Líbero que ama animais e falar sobre séries.