1995-present
Latest News: Timothée Chalamet Stars in Dune: Part Two
Dune: Part Two actor Timothée Chalamet has shared details of what it was like learning to knife-fight with co-star Austin Butler for the new science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Officially in theaters on Friday, March 1, Dune: Part Two sees Chalamet’s character Paul Atreides clash with the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (played by Butler) in close-up combat. Butler, who is nearly unrecognizable in the film’s trailer under his hauntingly pale prosthetics, underwent “intensive knife-fighting training” in preparation for the role. Eventually, the two actors met at a stunt warehouse to choreograph their scenes, leaving Chalamet nervous and excited to work with Butler in “a pretty aggressive way” from the start.
“(It was) a lot of rehearsal. A lot of practice in LA before even getting over to Hungary. But it was a dream,” Chalamet told CNN.
Luckily, the two were on much friendlier terms as they attended the film’s New York City premiere on February 25. Dune: Part Two also stars Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, and Christopher Walken.
Who Is Timothée Chalamet?
Timothée Chalamet is a French-American actor known for his Oscar-nominated performance in the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name, as well as roles in films such as the science fiction epic Dune (2021) and its newly released sequel and the musical comedy Wonka (2023).
With his Academy Award nomination as lead actor in Call Me By Your Name, Chalamet became the youngest actor nominated in the category since 19-year-old Mickey Rooney for 1939’s Babes in Arms. Elsewhere, Chalamet has appeared in the popular films Interstellar and Lady Bird and starred as Henry V in The King (2019).
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Timothée Hal Chalamet
BORN: December 27, 1995
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
SIBLING: Pauline Chalamet
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn
What Is Timothée Chalamet's Age?
Timothée Hal Chalamet is 28 years old. He was born on December 27, 1995, in New York City.
How Do You Say Timothée Chalamet’s Name?
The French pronunciation for Timothée is “Tim-oh-TAY,” though Chalamet goes by Timothy (to friends, he’s Timmy). Chalamet is said as “SHALL-uh-MAY.” Chalamet has joked that being famous makes people more likely to spell his name correctly.
Early Life and Education
Chalamet grew up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. His French father was an editor who worked for UNICEF, while his American mother was a dancer and Broadway performer. A young Chalamet developed an enthusiasm for everything from Broadway plays to sports. Growing up, he spent summers in France with his family.
Chalamet’s older sister, Pauline, is also an actor. He has many other family ties to showbiz. His aunt Amy Lippman is a producer and writer whose projects include Party of Five and Masters of Sex, uncle Rodman Flender works as a TV director, and his grandfather was screenwriter and novelist Harold Flender.
In addition to his family, Chalamet has credited the time he was 12 and saw Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight with him wanting to become an actor.
Chalamet attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, the Manhattan school that inspired the movie and TV show Fame. Chalamet took his school’s performing arts focus into other classes, such as when he made a rap video about statistics as “Lil’ Timmy Tim.”
Actor Ansel Elgort was one of Chalamet’s high school classmates; on one red carpet, Chalamet and Elgort said the other was more popular in school. Their drama teacher told Vanity Fair, “They were both like rock stars in a way, in a school full of rock stars. Everybody recognized them as being particularly gifted.”
After graduating, Chalamet spent a year at Columbia University. However, while talking to McConaughey for Interview magazine, Chalamet admitted he “floundered” there because it was challenging to return to the strictures of school after getting to make movies. Chalamet also set up his own major at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Movies & TV
Homeland and Interstellar
At the beginning of his screen career, Chalamet was seen on Royal Pains and Law & Order. During his senior year of high school, he was in Homeland as Finn Walden, the vice president’s son (and hit-and-run driver). This led to an appearance in Interstellar (2014) as Matthew McConaughey’s son. Other early Chalamet movies include Men, Women & Children (2014), Love the Coopers (2015), and Hot Summer Nights (2017).
Call Me By Your Name
In 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, Chalamet portrays 17-year-old Elio Perlman, who develops a crush on, enters into a sexual relationship with, and ends up genuinely loving Oliver (played by Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old graduate student staying with Elio’s family in Italy in the summer of 1983. Chalamet’s luminous performance as the young, vulnerable Elio was consistently applauded. In addition to his Academy Award nomination, Chalamet was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and he received Best Actor awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Call Me By Your Name is based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name; the screenplay is by James Ivory, and the film was directed by Luca Guadagnino. Chalamet was 17 when he first talked to Guadagnino about the film, and Guadagnino said that when he met Chalamet, “I really felt immediately that he had the ambition, the intelligence, the sensitivity, the naiveté, and the artistry to be Elio.” (While the movie was being developed, the director saw Chalamet shine Off-Broadway in John Patrick Shanley’s Prodigal Son.)
Before filming, Chalamet spent a month and a half in Italy to prepare for the role. As Elio speaks French, Italian, and English, Chalamet learned Italian and studied piano and guitar. When Hammer arrived three weeks before filming, Chalamet was able to guide the older actor around, and the time they spent together allowed them to forge an easy relationship that helped create onscreen chemistry.
As he accepted one award for his performance, Chalamet addressed director Guadagnino: “I’ll be endlessly thankful and stupefied that you put an actor with so little street cred as myself into a role as layered, and complex, and contradictory, and confused as Elio Perlman.”
Chalamet would work with Guadagnino again for the 2022 horror romance Bones and All.
Lady Bird
Chalamet enjoyed a role in another Oscar-nominated 2017 film, Lady Bird. In this movie, he portrays Kyle Scheible, one of the title character’s love interests. Chalamet said he tried to humanize the guitar-playing high schooler, hoping that viewers would “see that character as an antagonist that is genuinely suffering, has real emotions, and is living a sad existence.”
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird’s director, has said she considers Chalamet “a young Christian Bale crossed with a young Daniel Day-Lewis with a sprinkle of young Leonardo DiCaprio, and then raised speaking French in Manhattan and given a Mensa-level IQ and a love of hip-hop.”
Hostiles, Beautiful Boy, and The King
In 2018, Chalamet appeared in Hostiles as a French immigrant cavalry soldier in the Old West, alongside Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike, and lost 20 pounds to play a meth addict in Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell. The following year, he portrayed Henry V in The King, based on William Shakespeare’s Henriad plays, before reuniting with Greta Gerwig for Little Women.
Star of Dune and Dune: Part Two
Chalamet played Paul Atreides in the big-budget 2021 science fiction movie Dune, directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on the novel by Frank Herbert. The futuristic film, set primarily on a desert-covered planet called Arrakis, was praised for its visual effects and cinematography and nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. While it did not win in that category, the film took home six trophies for sound, design, cinematography, and original score.
Chalamet reprised his role for the 2024 sequel Dune: Part Two, which will be released in theaters on March 1.
Wonka
Chalamet showed off his vocals as a young version of Roald Dahl’s fictional chocolatier, Willy Wonka, in the 2023 musical film Wonka. The actor told Vanity Fair the film was “the most physically challenging project” he had ever done, as he rehearsed the dance choreography for months and underwent vocal training with British music supervisor James Taylor. He sang six songs, including reimagining “Pure Imagination” from the 1975 original film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder.
However, his hard work paid off. The film was a hit, grossing more than $600 million worldwide. Chalamet received his third Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Drama Motion Picture for the performance.
#MeToo, Time’s Up, and Woody Allen
Another film that prominently features Chalamet is Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day In New York City. Chalamet filmed his scenes with co-stars Selena Gomez and Elle Fanning in 2017. However, the advent of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements—which called out the sexual harassment, assault, discrimination, and predatory behavior that many influential figures (predominantly men) have gotten away with in both the film industry and society at large—drew attention to Allen’s past and raised questions for Chalamet about his choice to sign on with Allen.
Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, has said that he sexually assaulted her when she was 7 years old. Allen has consistently denied these allegations, and for years, Hollywood’s top talent continued to appear in his movies. But that has since changed, and in a January 2018 Instagram post, Chalamet wrote, “I am learning that a good role isn’t the only criteria for accepting a job—that has become much clearer to me in the past few months, having witnessed the birth of a powerful movement intent on ending injustice, inequality and above all, silence.”
Chalamet’s Instagram post also shared that he was going to donate his salary from Allen’s film to the Time’s Up campaign; the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network; and New York’s LGBT Center, making him one of many actors who have donated their salaries from Allen films. In the post, Chalamet also stated he couldn’t say more due to contractual obligations (though reports have questioned whether his contract prevented his speaking out).
Chalamet also expressed his support for Time’s Up at the 2018 SAG Awards, telling E! News, “With the centralization, the Time’s Up movement and hopefully at award shows like this, conversation’s getting out there. Equality in the workplace, 50/50 by 2020, these are messages that are getting out there now.”
Relationship with Kylie Jenner and Dating History
In spring 2023, rumors began that Chalamet was dating reality TV star and model Kylie Jenner. That June, the two were photographed together for the first time, and their couple status was all but confirmed in September when they were seen kissing at Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour.
However, in an interview with GQ, Chalamet discussed his desire to keep the details of their relationship private. Still, Chalamet and Jenner have made numerous appearances together, including at the U.S. Open tennis tournament and a Saturday Night Live afterparty following his turn as host in September 2023. Most recently, they were seen kissing at the Golden Globe Awards. A source told People that Jenner calls Chalamet “her boyfriend” and is “very content, relaxed, and focused.”
Before Jenner, Chalamet was first linked to Lourdes Leon, a high school classmate and Madonna’s daughter, in 2013. The two also appeared together in a school production of Sweet Charity.
During a 2017 interview with The Guardian, Chalamet veered into talk about relationships, saying, “I have experienced heartbreak but not in a classical sense.” He added, “I have this sense of independent heartbreak, of annulling romances before they get their feet off the ground… with one girl in particular.” He’s also told W magazine, “Date is very much a scary word because then that context has been established.”
For a while, red carpet events didn’t reveal much of Chalamet’s romantic life—in 2018, he took his mother to the SAG Awards and attended the Golden Globes with his sister—though he was spotted kissing The King actor Lily-Rose Depp that October. In April 2020, it was reported that Chalamet and Depp had ended their largely private relationship.
Height
According to his IMDb profile and J-14 magazine, Chalamet is 5 feet, 10 inches tall.
Net Worth
Celebrity Net Worth estimates Chalamet’s total fortune to be around $25 million as of February 2024.
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