Timothée Chalamet, bound for glory

With the Screen Actors Guild Award in hand for portraying Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, in February 2025, Timothée Chalamet, 30, opened up to his fellow performers. “I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats,” he said.

The actor has never hidden his artistic ambition, and the projects he selects have become more refined with age. Now, he’s preparing to win his first Oscar for his portrayal of hustler Marty Mauser in Marty Supreme. Amid praise from peers like Javier Bardem and his director Josh Safdie, the Chalamet era has arrived in world cinema.

Only one other actor had earned three Oscar nominations by the age of 30. And not just anyone: Marlon Brando. Chalamet, who turned 30 on December 27, already has four — for Call Me By Your Name (2017), A Complete Unknown (2024), and two for Marty Supreme, as lead actor and as producer.

His filmography already includes weighty titles: Interstellar, Lady Bird, Little Women, A Rainy Day in New York, Hostiles, Bones And All, The King (because every actor needs a Shakespeare role on their resume), the three installments of Dune, The French Dispatch (ditto a Wes Anderson film), Wonka, Don’t Look Up and Unknown World.

“I don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else,” Chalamet said at the San Sebastián International Film Festival during the press cycle for Beautiful Boy. As a kid, he worked on a handful of commercials, and by the end of his teen years was appearing on off-Broadway stages as he resolved his identity crisis over whether he felt French (like his father, a UNICEF official) or American (like his mother, a real estate agent). “In the end, I’ve stayed in both worlds,” he says.

Add to this artistic ambition an eye for marketing. The campaign for Marty Supreme has been nothing short of masterful. His character — based in part on the real-life Marty Reisman — is a bratty ping-pong champion in the mid 1950s, a young and compulsive con artist who lies, deceives and comes up with all kinds of tricks to survive. And, to conquer: Marty is the first to propose orange ping-pong balls that are easier to see, and has a version made with his name stamped on every orb. In reference to that fact, Chalamet and his partner Kylie Jenner appeared in a screeching shade of orange on the red carpet.

The actor even hosted a fake Zoom meeting with the Marty Supreme PR team in which he dropped lines like, “But if we do straight orange, then we’re literally just copping the vibe of Barbie. So how do we not just cop the vibe of Barbie? Hardcore orange, corroded orange, falling-apart, rusted orange!” What appeared to be a leak of this high-voltage video call was actually another promotional tool. So too, the orange blimp that floated over Los Angeles, as well as Chalamet’s climb to the highest point of the circular Sphere stage in Las Vegas, cast in an orange LED light as he screamed “Marty Supreme!” And then there was his television appearance surrounded by men in black with ping-pong heads.

Fashion is also part of the campaign — what’s known as method dressing. In the Oscars race for A Complete Unknown, the actor set out to replicate classic Bob Dylan looks. Now, he’s gifting Marty Supreme jackets to those he considers the greats, and in early every appearance, Chalamet’s own wardrobe publicizes the film. He’s always been good at self-marketing.

Another example can be found from that 2018 San Sebastián festival, during which press was banned from asked about his relationship with Woody Allen, who at the time was at the nadir of disgrace (Amazon was conflicted about even releasing Rainy Day in New York). But one journalist snuck in as their last question, “Before, you only had your own behavior to worry about. But do you look at the behavior of those you work with? As a star, are more careful about what you do?” Chalamet’s publicist jumped up, shouting, “Nooooo, that’s a Woody Allen question!” Chalamet stared at her wide‑eyed, and then chose to walk the journalist out of the suite to continue talking about the challenges of adapting Dune and the book’s different interpretations. He defused the situation.

None of this means he isn’t a relentless workhorse when it comes to acting. Since taking on Marty Supreme in 2018, he’s traveled around the world with his own ping-pong table. At Cannes in 2021, he stayed at a luxury Airbnb outside the city, turning down a hotel suite in order to have a garden with enough space to train with his team.

For several years, he added guitar lessons to that training so he could convincingly play Bob Dylan. On a video call, director Josh Safdie underscores that effort: “I met Timothée in 2017 and the person who introduced me said he was going to be the next superstar. They weren’t the only one, and from then on, everyone around Timothée was fueling that premonition. I don’t know, it seemed weird. Four months afterwards, I saw Call Me By Your Name, and I got it. Timothée has the ability to take a small film and elevate it and enhance it. He’s an icon, the kind that is larger than life.”

Safdie says that the best way to understand Chalamet is to see him in action in real life: “He has something magical. In the post-screening discussions, he talks to each viewer as if they were the only two people in the room.”

The filmmaker has managed to channel the actor’s ambition into the adrenalized momentum of Marty Mauser — his equally ambitious character — across two and a half hours of cinema that radiate a constant Scorsese‑style anxiety, a trademark of Safdie’s work.

“We rewrote the script because we felt like that energy would work,” he says. “Marty is a child of his time, of an America that believes that anything is possible, that if you have a dream, you should go for it because you’ll make it come true. And Timothée has that drive.”

Safdie says that’s where the similarities end. “I don’t think Timothée is an avatar of individualism, like Marty was. That United States of the 1950s, propelled by the ironclad illusion of individualism, returned in Reagan’s 1980s America, which looked back with a condescending nostalgia. That’s why the music in the movie is from that decade. But Timothée was born in the 21st century, he’s exploring different worlds and interests.”

The director goes on to highlight Chalamet’s artistic commitment. “I think it’s clear that this movie is not about sports,” he says. Marty plays ping-pong like Eddie Felson played pool in The Hustler. What matters is the universe the characters inhabit, the chance it offers for money and glory — not athletic competition. “In total, Timothée has spent years and years playing table tennis. He didn’t give up in the pandemic, not even when I was trying to find funding,” he remembers.

A very intelligent actor

It’s clear that, like his primary competition for this year’s Oscar, Leonardo DiCaprio, Chalamet has long been selecting his projects carefully. His priority is on auteurs, not proposals. He signed on to Dune because of director Denis Villeneuve. Javier Bardem, his cast mate in the franchise, tells EL PAÍS: “I met Timothée the year before the pandemic. And I told him then what I am still thinking about. If at 20 years old, you make Call Me By Your Name and Beautiful Boy, what are you going to do when you grow up?"

Bardem continues: “I have been witness to that growth, of how he adapts to circumstances. He is very intelligent, with so much sense of humor, and he’s a good coworker. He has a tremendous hunger to learn, he’s always getting absorbed in the artistic and the technical. Oh, and he respects his elders,” adds Bardem, laughing. The Spanish actor recalls the astonishment he felt on A Complete Unknown, not only at the physical transformation but at the fact that Chalamet sang all 15 songs just like Dylan. “The thing is, that’s someone who is really preparing. In Marty Supreme, he does the year’s best work. And I think he will continue to grow.”

Chalamet follows one last rule to secure the Oscar for Marty Supreme: he made himself uglier. In the movie, he wore prosthetics so that his face appeared covered in acne. Gwyneth Paltrow, who met him on set and plays an aging actress in need of a good time, saw him and recommended skincare products. Chalamet had to show her that his pimples were fake.

What does the man himself say? On BBC in December, he shared that he sees his responsibility as making sure “that looks real to you on screen,” whether its singing or playing ping-pong. “I get to live this awesome life where I work on these projects that actually are near and dear to my heart. A lot of actors don’t get the chance to work, let alone work on things they actually are passionate about. There’s worse things in life than having to learn how to play the guitar and play table tennis at a high level.”

And his future? Past collaborations with Liverpool rapper EsDeeKid (the online rumor mill swears they’re the same person), Chalamet is focusing on his development as a human being. “You want to grow into yourself. But that is a huge learning curve. And I try not to be too hard on myself or those around me who are also growing,” he says.

On March 15, if the energy behind One Battle After Another doesn’t propel DiCaprio to victory, Chalamet will likely collect his first — and well-deserved — Oscar.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition