Timothée Chalamet’s blatant attempt to ignore Leonardo DiCaprio’s advice: “I have to go back”
In modern Hollywood, Timothée Chalamet‘s star burns brighter than most. The 29-year-old star has been on a rocket to the top ever since he became one of the youngest ‘Best Actor’ Academy Award nominees in history with Call Me by Your Name. Since then, he’s racked up appearances in more Oscar-nominated films than you can shake a stick at, netted another ‘Best Actor’ nomination, and become a blockbuster leading man with Dune and Wonka.
Naturally, there aren’t too many stars who can relate to Chalamet’s experience of attaining so much success early in his career. It’s often a recipe for disaster for someone so young to be put on a pedestal, as they can wind up making bad choices personally and professionally, depending on who is in their inner circle. Thankfully, ‘Timmy Tim’ received a sage piece of wisdom from someone who very much could relate to his story: Leonardo DiCaprio, who also became a worldwide teen idol at a tender age.
The Titanic leading man managed to navigate his career from teen star to adult Oscar mainstay without any major derailments, which meant the advice he gave Chalamet the first time they met had undeniable weight to it. “Well, Leonardo DiCaprio said to me, ‘No superhero movies, no hard drugs’,” Chalamet revealed to The New York Times in 2024, “Which I thought was very good.”
To date, Chalamet has not donned a cape and tights on-screen, seemingly indicating that he has kept DiCaprio’s counsel. However, that doesn’t take into account the time he blatantly tried to ignore that advice by auditioning for one of the most iconic superhero roles, nor does it account for the fact that a superhero film convinced him to become an actor.
Back when Chalamet was a fresh-faced 19-year-old, he was one of many hopefuls who read for the part of the teen wallcrawler Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming. “I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic,” he revealed at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. “I called my agent, Brian Swardstrom, and I said, ‘Brian, I thought about this a lot and I have to go back and knock on that door and read again.'”
Swardstrom must have been around the block a few times, though, because he dissuaded Chalamet from making a scene by returning to his botched audition. He pointed the young star to the cautionary tale of Sean Young, who had been cast in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman as Vicki Vale, but was forced to drop out when she injured herself falling off a horse. A few years later, she reportedly turned up at Burton’s office in a Catwoman costume to convince him to cast her in Batman Returns, but scared him and ruined her Hollywood reputation in the process.
As an extra blow to DiCaprio, Chalamet once admitted that watching one seminal 2008 superhero movie quite literally inspired him to try acting on for size. “When I was 12 years old…I petitioned my mum and grandma to see Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight with me,” the actor explained, “I left that theatre a changed man, and I’m serious about that.” The aspect of Nolan’s defining epic that wowed Chalamet the most was, unsurprisingly, Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker, which he dubbed “visceral and viral” because it infected him with “the acting bug”.
This is why, if the right superhero picture came across his desk, Chalamet would have to overrule DiCaprio. “If the script was great, if the director was great, I’d have to consider it,” he nodded.
