Dune, Wonka, Don’t Look Up, Little Women, The King, Call Me By Your Name, Interstellar… Timothée Chalamet’s resume is envied by many, and with good reason; At 28 years old, the young New York actor has a list of successes behind him that profile him as one of the great film talents in Hollywood.
The actor is already a safe bet for any production company that wants their film to be a success. The young man has earned the crown of ‘It Boy’ of the cinema mecca, and it seems that he follows the example of others who have been triumphing in Hollywood for decades to emulate his glory, such as Leonardo DiCaprio. What’s more, as Chalamet himself revealed in an interview, DiCaprio gave him two wise pieces of advice that he follows today, partly “guilty” of his success.
As Chalamet confessed to the British edition of Vogue, when he was filming Don’t Look Up in 2021, DiCaprio gave him two pieces of advice to keep his professional career on the path to success: “No hard drugs or superhero movies.” Two pieces of advice that DiCaprio himself has followed during the almost four decades of his professional career and that are sufficient proof of his effectiveness.
DiCaprio has not appeared on television since his time on The Troubles Grow, in the early 90s. Nor has he taken part in any superhero saga, as other colleagues have done; Nor has he been involved in any alcohol or drug addiction scandal in his career.
For the moment, Chalamet follows DiCaprio’s advice to the letter, which already earned him his first Oscar nomination at just 22 years old. Now, as he confessed in a recent interview with the New York Times, things may change in the future, depending on what they offer him.
“Leonardo DiCaprio told me: ‘No hard drugs or superhero movies,’ which I think were very good. I follow them both! But if the movie that made me want to act was a superhero movie like The Dark Knight, if the script was great, the director was fantastic, I would have to reconsider,” reflects the young actor. “I never underestimated the power of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.”
Chalamet’s love for Nolan’s adaptation of DC comics and the famous superhero is no coincidence. In 2018, the actor himself confessed that this film had changed his life, when he went to see it when he was only 12 years old. “I went to see it in the theater and came out a changed man, really. Heath Ledger’s performance in that movie was so raw and viral for me, that he gave me the bug.”
For the moment, Chalamet has not let himself be tempted by the world of superheroes, as other actors of his generation have done. Without going any further, her Dune co-stars, Zendaya and Florence Pugh, are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.