Biography
Date of Birth
27 December 1995, New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name
Timothée Hal Chalamet
Nickname
Timo
Timmy
Tim
Timmy T
Lil Timmy Tim
Height
5' 10" (1.78 m)
Mini 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, play 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).
Trivia
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.
His father was raised in Lille, France, and his mother is from New York. Timothée's paternal grandfather, The Rev. Roger Chalamet, was a French Protestant minister, from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, and Timothée's paternal grandmother, Jean (Ashworth), moved from Ontario, Canada to France, and was of British Isles ancestry. Timothée's mother is Jewish (of half Austrian Jewish and half Russian Jewish ancestry). Timothée's maternal grandparents, Harold Flender and Enid (Rodman), were born in The Bronx, New York, both of them to Jewish emigrant parents.
Timothée's maternal uncle is director Rodman Flender. Timothée's maternal grandfather was writer and screenwriter Harold Flender.
Auditioned for the role of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War (2016). He lost out to Tom Holland.
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".
Timothée is the French form of Timothy. In the French version of the Bible, Timothée is the companion of St. Paul. It is a masculine name. The name is pronounced in French as tim-o-tay.
Plays the piano and guitar, the former of which he played for the role of Elio in Call Me by Your Name (2017).
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).
Brother of actress Pauline Chalamet and nephew of writer, producer, and director Amy Lippman.
In 2017, became the youngest winner of the NYFCC's Best Actor prize, for Call Me by Your Name (2017).
His maternal grandfather Harold Flender wrote for Sid Caesar in the 1950s, along with Woody Allen. When Allen later cast Timothée in his film A Rainy Day in New York (2019), he was initially unaware of the family relation.
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).
He is the first and thus far only person born in the 1990s to have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Call Me by Your Name (2017), fourteen years after Keisha Castle-Hughes became the first person born in the 1990s to be nominated for an acting Oscar (Best Actress, for Whale Rider (2002), in the ceremony for 2003). Lucas Hedges and Dev Patel are the first males born in the 1990s to have been nominated for acting (Best Supporting Actor, for Manchester by the Sea (2016) and Lion (2016), respectively).
As of 2020, he has been in 3 films that were Oscar nominated for Best Picture: Call Me by Your Name (2017), Lady Bird (2017), and Little Women (2019).
Auditioned for the role of Patrick in Manchester by the Sea (2016). He lost out to Lucas Hedges.
Also uses a French passport.
Though he started acting a child doing commercials, which he says he hated and only did it 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.
Despite his distinctly French first and last names, Timothée is of only one quarter French ancestry. His other roots are one quarter British Isles and one half Ashkenazi Jewish.
He is a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, whom he has described as one of his heroes, and has named Punch-Drunk Love (2002) as one of his favorite films.
After Interstellar, which he thought would be his breakout role (only for it to be a minor one), Timothée had a streak of rejections and would get upset watching movies he had auditioned for or even watching movies with actors his age.
While living in the Bronx, he lived two streets away from Yankee Stadium.
He was originally going to be rejected from LaGuardia, but his sophomore drama teacher gave insisted upon his enrollment and gave him the highest score.
Was still only 17 when he started college at Columbia University. (He now attends New York University).
As of 2020, he has been nominated for 1 Oscar, 2 Golden Globes, 3 BAFTAs, and 4 SAGs.
Despite having an Italian instructor to prepare for Call Me by Your Name, he cannot speak the language and says would have preferred to do it phonetically.
Before fame, Samuel L. Jackson once worked as a security guard for the apartment building he grew up in. Alicia Keys also grew up there.
Among movies he auditioned for but never got a response or call back include The Neon Demon (2016), White Boy Rick (2018), The Theory of Everything (2014), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), and Manchester by the Sea (2016).
He spent his first big paycheck (from a Disney commercial) on season tickets for the Knicks, thinking LeBron James was going to join the team in his 2010 free agency. He had to scalp the tickets daily after school.
In high school, he dated Madonna's daughter Lola (his classmate).
Considers Kiernan Shipkato be his little sister.
His parents met while his dad was on a business trip to New York.
Wants to direct and produce music one day.
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.
Missed about half of his senior year to film Homeland.
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.
His first album was 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
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.
Of his time at Columbia, he said he felt like another product on the factory line.
His eyes are actually blue with a large hazel iris, giving them a faux "green" appearance.
While his became the number one movie internationally (Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York), at the same time his sister Pauline Chalamet co-starred in the number one movie in America (Judd Apatow's The King of Staten Island).
His father isn't the only Francophone parent. His mother, who graduated from Yale with a BA in French, has been a teacher of French in the New York City public school system since the '90s.
Prefers doing theater.
Quotes
[on working with Greta Gerwig] I would work with Greta on anything. I'm just totally in awe of her. I like working with filmmakers who are ten times smarter than me. Also I get to be the square to the circle of Saoirse Ronan's affections again.
I think the most precious thing I get from my parents - and I try and give it back to them as much as I can - is their love and support. I hope that doesn't sound cheesy, but it's true. In your late teens, early 20s, you suddenly realize that your parents are human. That doesn't mean I don't get really great advice from them, because I do. But you reach a certain age and you take control of your own life.
[on method acting] I try to be super careful. The danger is you can end up focusing more on what's going on off-camera than on-camera. You don't want to be entertaining for the sake of being entertaining. The work should be the work. If it resonates, it's going to resonate, and then people are naturally curious about how you got to that destination. It can't be about how you're getting to it.
I hear about celebrities who have stylists, and that blows my mind. It's certainly not why I act, but I can wear cool clothes from some of the nicest designers in the world. So why am I going to pay someone to figure out what I should be wearing? That's the fun part.
I'm a big hypocrite in that I believe that the most important part of any audition is the second you leave the room. If you can leave and not beat yourself up, it's going to help you next time. I never actually auditioned for Call Me by Your Name (2017), which kind of blows my mind. I did a reading in New York.
New York. New York. Hands down. When I land I kiss the tarmac, baby.
[on Beautiful Boy (2018)] Playing a young person who's lost and self-loathing - that's universally relatable. I think it's the job of any actor to be as raw as possible and make yourself an open wound.
