Timothée Chalamet

Biography

Timothée Hal Chalamet was born in Manhattan, to Nicole Flender, a real estate broker and dancer, and Marc Chalamet, a UNICEF editor. His mother, who is from New York, is Jewish, of Russian Jewish and Austrian Jewish descent. 

His father, who is from Nîmes, France, is of French and English ancestry. He is the brother of actress Pauline Chalamet, a nephew of director Rodman Flender, and a grandson of screenwriter Harold Flender.

He grew up in an artistic family, appearing in commercials and the New York theatre scene, and attending the LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts, where his classmate and friend was actor Ansel Elgort (the two later received their first Golden Globe nominations in the same year, 2017). For a time, Timothée also attended Columbia University.

He made his film debut in 2014, as a high school student in Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children (2014) and Matthew McConaughey's character's teenage son in Interstellar (2014).

 He subsequently had sizable roles in several indie films, playing the younger version of writer Stephen Elliott in The Adderall Diaries (2015), the male lead, Zac, in the drama One and Two (2015), and Billy in the road trip drama Miss Stevens (2016). 

On stage, he has appeared in the plays The Talls, by Anna Kerrigan, and John Patrick Shanley's autobiographical Prodigal Son, while on television, he has had a minor role in the film Loving Leah (2009), a big part in Law & Order (1990), and meatier roles on the shows Royal Pains (2009) and Homeland (2011), among other work.

He broke out in 2017, appearing in notable supporting roles, as a soldier in the western Hostiles (2017) and a high school crush of the title character in Lady Bird (2017), and in a leading role as Elio, an Italian Jewish seventeen-year-old who romances his father's older assistant, played by Armie Hammer, in the Luca Guadagnino drama Call Me by Your Name (2017).

 Timothée's role as Elio received significant critical acclaim, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Drama, and won many critics' groups' awards for Best Actor of the Year.

In 2018, he starred as Nic Sheff, who suffers from substance abuse problems, in the drama Beautiful Boy (2018). In 2019, he will headline the Woody Allen comedy A Rainy Day in New York (2019), with Selena Gomez, who plays Henry V of England, King from 1413 to 1422, in the historical drama The King (2019), and embody love interest Laurie in Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women (2019).

Speaks French almost fluently (he puts himself at 97% fluent, because he mistakes certain gendered nouns) and learned how to speak Italian while shooting Call Me by Your Name (2017).

In 2017, became the youngest winner of the NYFCC's Best Actor prize, for Call Me by Your Name (2017).

His name is properly pronounced Timo-TAY but he also accepts the English pronunciation Timothy, and nicknames Tim and Timmy. He chooses to go by Timothy because he doesn't like requiring all people to use the French version, as he finds that "pretentious" and "unrelatable".

The King (2019)'s promotional poster came from a candid photo of him sitting and listening to director David Michôd, the poster was simply shaded and edited darker.

Auditioned for the role of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War (2016). He lost out to Tom Holland.

Auditioned for Bates Motel (2013) but used the wrong Psycho reference point (thinking it was American Psycho) so he didn't get the role. Freddie Highmore did.

Though he started acting as a child doing commercials, which he says he hated and only did because New York children are often approached about it, he was inspired to do it professionally after seeing Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight (2008). He also credits Kid Cudi with the reason he is an actor.

Christopher Nolan cast him Interstellar saying that his talent was immediately apparent in the audition. He would've considered casting him in the war ensemble Dunkirk (2017) if he were British.

Born and raised in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. He is the son of Marc Chalamet, a UNICEF editor, and Nicole Flender, a dancer and real estate broker.

As of 2020, he has been nominated for 1 Oscar, 2 Golden Globes, 3 BAFTAs, and 4 SAGs.

Plays the piano and guitar, the former of which he played for the role of Elio in Call Me by Your Name (2017).

He and Ansel Elgort attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts at the same time. He maintains when he auditioned for school plays he didn't get the roles because Ansel did, so he was relegated to the talent shows. 

This is mostly true as their drama teacher did cast Ansel in Hairspray and Guys and Dolls, but Timothée did get cast as the lead in Sweet Charity. Directly after high school, they co-starred in the film Men, Women & Children (2014).

As of 2022, he has been in five films that were Oscar-nominated for Best Picture: Call Me by Your Name (2017), Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019), Dune (2021), and Don't Look Up (2021).

In high school, he dated Madonna's daughter Lola (his classmate).