Timothée Chalamet Was Told He Was Too Skinny to Be a Movie Star

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET IS one of the most successful and exciting young actors working in movies right now. But while it feels like he’s already a longtime star and industry veteran at age 28, that wasn’t always the case. In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Chalamet said that early on in his career, he was advised that if he wanted to become a major movie star, he would have to make some major changes to his body.

“If I auditioned for The Maze Runner or Divergent—things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up—the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,’” he said. “I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You’ve got to put on weight,’ basically. Not aggressively, but you know.”

Chalamet, who was also famously a candidate to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was comparing his own path to stardom to that of Bob Dylan, whom he plays in the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown. The actor said that he found his way by blazing his own trail through “very personalized movies,” which included smaller films that were much-loved by both critics and audiences like Lady Bird, Little Women, and Call Me By Your Name, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

“This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

This, he says, was not far off from how Dylan found his way through the early part of his career.

“For [Dylan], it was folk music,” Chalamet said.. “He couldn’t keep a rock and roll band because they would all get hired by other kids that had more money, literally, in Minnesota.”

Despite Chalamet’s slender frame, he has indeed become one of the most popular actors of his generation and a legitimate box office draw; both last year’s Wonka and this year’s Dune: Part Two were genuine smash hits.

A Complete Unknown, out this December, could represent Chalamet’s next chance at another Oscar nomination. The movie is directed by James Mangold, who previously was behind the camera for the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Joaquin Phoenix and a win for Reese Witherspoon.

He’s currently filming Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, which has a $9src million budget—A24’s highest of all time. That film is likely to be released in late 2src25.

You can watch Chalamet’s entire conversation with Zane L