Timothée Chalamet’s most influential acting mentor: “I gained some unlearnable experience”
Few actors have had the same trajectory or consistency over the past decade as Timothée Chalamet. From his Oscar-nominated turn as a sexually confused teenager in Call Me By Your Name to his attempts to woo Saoirse Ronan in both Lady Bird and Little Women to his ascension to the blockbuster throne in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series, Chalamet has done it all and, considering he isn’t even 30 yet, his potential seems endless.
One of the earliest sightings of a young Timmy on film can be found in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar. As a teenager, he played Tom, the son of protagonist Joseph ‘Coop’ Cooper. He appears at the start of the movie, playing a character that is eventually taken over by Casey Affleck in adulthood.
Working on this project was invaluable for Chalamet, as he told Variety in 2017. He was particularly grateful to work alongside Matthew McConaughey, who played his father, as he explained, “Watching him, I gained some unlearnable experience about how to pace yourself, how not to burn out, how to let go of a scene if you don’t feel you did it justice.”
Interstellar came a few years into a dramatic shift in public opinion on the former rom-com star, dubbed “The McConaissance”. It was released the same year the Texan won ‘Best Actor’ at the Oscars for his role in Dallas Buyers Club and three years after his performance in The Lincoln Lawyer kickstarted his career makeover. His efforts as Coop, a deep space pilot trying to get home to see his daughter, were nominated for a Saturn Award, although he lost out that time to Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy.
The French-American star also talked about working alongside Christian Bale in the movie Hostiles, which is about a 19th-century American soldier who must escort a Native American chief back to his tribal lands. Chalamet, who plays a young private in the film, spoke of his admiration for both Bale and McConaughey, particularly their stamina.
“What impresses me most with these guys is endurance,” he said. “It’s about a certain explicit commitment to every scene and to every part of the script.”
Elsewhere in the article, Chalamet discussed the process behind another of his breakout roles. In 2018, he appeared in the Felix van Groeningen film Beautiful Boy, which is based on the real-life relationship between a father and his drug-addict son. Chalamet appeared opposite Steve Carrell as the character Nicolas Sheff, a young man with multiple substance issues. A lot was made at the time of how much Chalamet had slimmed down to play the part, especially as there was barely anything to him to begin with. However, in the actor’s own words, “It seemed like a no-brainer to lose a little bit more weight if that’s what the truth of the story was.”
Following his recent success as Paul Atreides (and Willy Wonka, lest we forget), Chalamet’s next big screen appearance will be as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. Following that, he will be turning his hand to the world of table tennis in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. The film is said to be inspired by the great American player Marty Reisman, although rumour has it that it will be less of a biopic and more of a fictionalised account of his life.
