Timothée Chalamet’s Success and Worldwide Fame

It’s a fact that we all know who Timothée Chalamet is, or at least, I hope so (if you don’t, you live under a rock); everyone is aware of the amazing actor that he is, who has already starred in many movies and collaborated with some of the greatest names in Hollywood such as Meryl Streep, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Murray, and many more. However, it does seem rather unusual that such a young actor has accomplished so much in a relatively short amount of time, and is nowadays famous around the whole world. How is it that Timothée Chalamet became successful so quickly?

Before we get into his major fame and success, a brief recap of his life and acting career will be made; that way, it makes it clear why Timothée deserves the success he has nowadays. Born on 27 December 1995, being 25 years old, Timothée Chalamet has already participated in 28 productions throughout his life. With his mother being an artist, the theatre was a very present element in his life. Because of that, since little, he has participated in theatre productions and even dance pieces. Let’s not forget to mention the fact that Timothée Chalamet is also an incredible rapper and has some amazing rapping skills I’ve never seen before. He even created a rap persona “Lil Timmy Tim”, and if you’ve never seen this side of his, please do; the link to his “Statistic Rap” and his “Talent Show” video will be down below, give it a look, you won’t regret it. College-wise, he would be attending Columbia University to study cultural anthropology (I know, weird right?), yet, during his freshman year, he starred in “Interstellar” by Christopher Nolan in 2014, where he would be playing McConaughey, son, therefore, he transferred to NYU to follow his acting career. His first “big appearance” in cinema was in the movie “Men, Women, And Children” by Jason Reitman also in 2014.

It was around 2016-2017 where everything changed. 2017 was HIS year, where he starred in two movies: “Lady Bird” by Greta Gerwig, and the famous “Call Me By Your Name” by Luca Guadagnino. In Lady Bird, he played Kyle, the protagonist’s love interest who was a complete douchebag (still cute though) and had very short screen time (fortunately but also, unfortunately). However, in Call Me By Your Name, Timothée played Elio (the protagonist), a 17-year-old boy who falls in love with his father’s graduate student assistant and experiences his first relationship; with that, he discovers things about himself that he never felt before. This movie served as a breakthrough for his career, and as-a-result, he became one of the biggest youngest actors in Hollywood. Due to such an amazing performance in this movie (the last scene where he was crying in front of the fireplace with “Visions of Gideon” playing for around 4 minutes was simply show-stopping), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Even though he didn’t win, Timothée became the third-youngest actor to be nominated for this category. Furthermore, he was the youngest “Best Actor” nominee since Mickey Roone in 1939, in 80 years.

Call Me By Your Name is not the only movie where Timothée takes his job seriously. He always puts the best of his effort into all of his characters. Every single role of his is different than the other, he shows a different version of himself in each one of them. It is very clear how Timothée takes his profession very seriously, and it is evident how good of an actor he is due to the effort he always puts into his movies. My fangirl side is really evident right now, but he does what it takes to make his characters alive, and conveys various emotions through them. In “Beautiful Boy” by Felix Van Groeningen, Timothée had to lose almost 10 kg for his role as a drug-addict, and in CMBYN, he had to learn how to play the guitar, the piano, and learn Italian; and he manages to ace all of them (I had piano lessons for almost 3 years and still struggled to play with both hands while reading from the music sheet).

Chalamet was already famous before “Call Me By Your Name”, yet, he got extremely recognized and praised for his performance as Elio in that movie. From 2017 on (when he was starring in more movies) “Timmy” (a nickname given by his fans) became extremely popular. The number of interviews and talk shows he participated in grew significantly. Suddenly, he became the hot-topic of various articles such as Vanity Fair, Vulture, and even Vogue, and was being invited to co-host events such as the Met Gala, and even the Oscars. Pretty much, the whole Gen Z and even millennials talk about him 24/7 on social media about his wardrobe, his love-life (which, to be honest, after Lily, doesn’t seem very interesting), his new movies, etc. Seeing the number of fans he has, brands, companies and even interviewers didn’t think twice to invite him to participate in a live stream, to sponsor a product, and even model for a magazine; and then, in less than a day, he becomes the trending topic on Twitter and fan pages on Instagram will talk about it for days. An example is his Vogue photoshoot where his modeling photos were all over Twitter and his SNL participation, especially his skit with Pete Davidson where the whole internet went wild with it (and of course, I did too). Companies saw how much recognition they received afterward because of him, and Timothée has been called in to participate in these “events” more and more often.

The amount of sudden recognition and success Timothée received from one day to the other was giant and very unexpected, and Timothée himself agreed on that. He stated in an interview that he needed time to think about everything that was going on and balance his life, “My world has flipped. But if I kicked with my friends, things could still feel the same. I was trying to marry these two realities. But I don’t even think I knew what I was doing. That dissonance was real. And thank God. Because I feel like if I’d caught up to it immediately, I would’ve been a psychopath or something.”

This year, Timmy will be starring in 3 movies: Dune (by Denis Villeneuve), The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, very excited to watch this one), and Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay), a movie streak. Dune is already out and will debut on the 21st of October here in Brazil, The French Dispatch is estimated to debut in Brazil around November, and Don’t Look Up’s debut in Brazil is still unknown. This week, Timmy posted on his Instagram account that he’ll be starring in a new adaptation of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory called “WONKA”, playing Willy Wonka himself. It has also been rumored that he’ll be starring in other movies such as the possibility of playing Bob Dylan in his biography, “Going Electric”.

Overall, it is clear how Hollywood’s new “golden boy” is extremely popular among teenagers and even young adults. Being one of the decade’s favorite heart-throbs, he conquered the heart of many teenagers (mine included). His pretty face and talent aren’t just what won the heart of the people; he is involved in the fashion industry, has hosted many events, is a great rapper, and in addition to that, Timothée is extremely present and caring with his fans, always being grateful and humble for what he accomplished. He is also a fan himself, he loves meeting new actors, his idols, he enjoys every moment of his job. Chalamet is very relevant nowadays, especially with teenagers, inspiring all of us to follow our dreams and to do whatever we want to do with extreme hard work and effort.

With these new movies coming up is there a possibility of a first Oscar maybe? Will his fame and success disappear as quickly as it appeared? Only the future can tell. If you want to get to know more about Timothée and his roles, I recommend you to watch these movies: The King (10/10 recommend), Beautiful Boy, Little Women, and Call Me By Your Name (16+).

Here are the links for his “Statistic Rap” and “Rising Stars”