Timothée Chalamet: From Homeland to Call Me By Your Name, five roles that made him a star

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Harry Fletcher15 January 2019

Just a few years ago, the majority of film fans had never heard of Timothée Chalamet — now, he’s one of the the biggest stars of his generation.

After giving his first TV appearances aged just 12 in 2009, Chalamet went on to catch the eye of directors like Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan and Luca Guadagnino.

The actor is one of the most acclaimed young acting talents in Hollywood, winning over fans with a string of strong performances — not to mention killer red carpet looks.

As well as a his latest role in Beautiful Boy alongside Steve Carell, the actor is taking on huge roles in challenging projects, including the upcoming Little Women reboot and a new adaptation of the supposedly ‘unfilmable’ Frank Herbert sci-fi novel Dune.

From formative TV performances to breakthrough films, these are the roles that made Chalamet a star.

Homeland, 2012

2012 saw Chalamet land his first recurring television roles in Royal Pains and Homeland — the latter marking one of the most acclaimed shows of the decade. The actor played Finn Walden, the rebellious son of the Vice President, with priceless brattiness. Walden and his on-screen girlfriend Dana were two of the show’s most objectionable characters in the show’s second season, playing out one of the show's most irksome subplots. Just like his role in Lady Bird years later, it proved that Chalamet can bring incredibly unlikeable characters to life just as well as more charming roles. He only appeared in eight episodes of the drama, but showed enough to earn a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series along with his co-stars.

Interstellar, 2014

Interstellar became the first major movie credit to Chalamet’s name in 2014, after Nolan recognised his talents by casting him as Tom – the 15-year-old son of Matthew McConaughey’s engineer and former NASA pilot. While the majority of the action takes place in alternate dimensions, far away from Tom and the farm he grew up on, the family dynamic and ever-so strained relationship between him and his father gave the hugely ambitious sci-fi drama a human grounding.

Call Me By Your Name, 2017

This is the film that marked Chalamet out as one of the biggest talents of his generation. While he’d shown promise earlier in his career, Call Me By Your Name proved to be Chalamet’s breakthrough performance, announcing him as a real star. The actor played out a tentative romance with Armie Hammer’s Oliver in the moving film, set against the backdrop of a woozy Italian summer. The movie proved to be one of the most profound coming of age stories to arrive in cinemas over recent times, and a tender love story for the ages. It announced Chalamet on the world stage and earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Hot Summer Nights, 2018

Like a number of Chalamet’s film projects, 2018’s Hot Summer Nights is a coming of age movie dealing with sexual liberation and rebellion. It’s the story of an introverted teenager who makes his forays into drug dealing during a summer in Cape Cod, also forming an intense relationship with It Follows star Maika Monroe. While it went a little under the radar last year, it marked one of the first films headlined by Chalamet, with the actor taking a leading role for the first time.

Lady Bird, 2018

Few can play pretentious youth better than Chalamet. In Greta Gerwig’s excellent Lady Bird, the actor plays the pseudo philosophical, poetry-reading bass player Kyle, who remains largely indifferent to Saoirse Ronan’s affections throughout. All cheekbones and slacker cool, the character is a key member of the popular crowd, who Lady Bird pursues at the expense of her best friend Julie and ends up regretting pretty quickly.

His character is a familiar one, which will strike a chord with anyone who went through a Kerouac-reading, rollies-smoking phase in their youth. While it would verge on parody in the hands of a less talented performer, Chalamet manages to add a believability the role and pull the whole thing off effortlessly.

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