Timothée Chalamet Said He Wants to Be ‘One of the Greats.’ He’s Well on His Way

It was the nakedly aspirational quote heard ’round the world. Accepting the Screen Actors Guild best-actor award last February for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet took the stage and joked about the microphone being too short, expressed shock at winning, thanked his mom. Typical awards-ceremony banter. Then the artist formerly known as Lil’ Timmy Tim took on a serious tone. 

“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role,” he began. “But the truth is … I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that. But I wanna be one of the greats.” He name-checked Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Viola Davis, Michael Phelps (!), and Michael Jordan (!!). “I wanna be up there.”

People instantly took sides: Chalamet was refreshingly honest. Chalamet was a bratty try-hard. Chalamet was ambitious enough to strive for nothing less than total awesomeness. Chalamet was passive-aggressively inserting himself into the canon. Social media pundits either said he lacked grace and humility or dropped memes of his Little Women co-star Florence Pugh saying, “I want to be great, or nothing.” Fellow actor Josh O’Connor declared in GQ that, confessional speech aside, Chalamet was already a legend (“You did it, mate”). Davis herself said she’d happily pass him the baton.

The fact is, ever since Chalamet demonstrated he could be fearless onscreen (and a first-rate lover of peaches) in 2017’s Call Me by Your Name, the actor has been reaching for the brass ring of movie-star immortality. He’s radiated an intensity that falls somewhere between self-serious and extremely disciplined. He’s worked in edgier-than-usual projects — Wonka detour excluded — and with name-brand filmmakers (Wes Anderson, Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan, Luca Guadagnino, and, er, Woody Allen). He’s been nominated twice for a lead-actor Oscar before the age of 30. He’s not a Method guy, but he prepped for close to five years to play Dylan and nearly as long to portray a table-tennis phenom in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, installing a ping-pong table everywhere he lived while working on other movies, from London to Budapest to France.

It’s this last project that blurs the line between Chalamet playing someone aspiring to greatness and being an actor who has a strong chance of achieving that goal in real life. Marty Supreme casts Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a Manhattan shoe salesman circa 1952 who’s gunning for that number-one spot in … ping-pong. No, the sport doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Yes, Mauser will beg, borrow, and steal to get to London for the world championship, where he comes this close to winning the entire tournament. His last-minute loss only makes him that much more determined to get a rematch and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s the best to ever play the game.

Mauser is blustery, egomaniacal, a hustler, and a motormouth who nearly gets knocked out (or worse) numerous times. He thinks nothing of lying to loved ones, cheating business associates, leaving friends in the lurch, seducing a married movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow), and co-opting a young woman he’s impregnated (I Love LA’s Odessa A’zion) into his shenanigans. Mauser is also a once-in-a-lifetime talent — potentially the Michael Phelps or Michael Jordan of ping-pong. He can back up the smack talk. “In spirit, this is the most who I was that I’ve had to play [in] a role,” Chalamet told The Hollywood Reporter after the film’s New York Film Festival premiere. “This is who I was before I had a career.” 

Marty Supreme plays like a nervous breakdown already in progress — no surprise, given that Safdie made his bones putting stars like Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler through the wringer in films like Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019). What’s shocking is how this frantic, gritty, darkly comic sports drama taps into something we haven’t seen in Chalamet before. He’s played boy wonders and sociopaths, messiah figures and eccentric chocolatiers, but this young man trying to parlay raw talent into fame, fortune, and professional glory intertwines a double helix of extreme confidence and neediness that seems to motivate Chalamet as well. Desperation suits him. So does knowing he’s excellent and throwing it back in haters’ faces.

And here’s where things get truly interesting: Marty Supreme has not only gifted the LaGuardia High School graduate and thin white duke of contemporary screen acting with the best reviews of his career. It’s moved him that much closer to his goal of being considered one of the major talents of his generation. (As well as an artist who truly understands how to gonzo-market a movie in the 21st century — try getting Jacob Elordi or Sydney Sweeney to stand on top of the Sphere!) He’s already been called to the podium twice this awards season, first at the Critics Choice Awards last week and last night at the Golden Globes. His speech at the former was overshadowed by hyperventilating headlines regarding his shout-out to longtime romantic partner Kylie Jenner. The Globes speech, however, found him loose, exuding both confidence and humility.

After thanking his director, big-upping his cast mates, and joking about Shark Tank‘s Mr. Wonderful, Chalamet started to take on the same tone he did at last year’s SAGs. Anyone expecting more aspirational mantras, however, was likely (mildly) shocked by the next part. “My dad instilled in me a spirit of gratitude growing up,” Chalamet began. “‘Always be grateful for what you have.’ It’s allowed me to leave this ceremony in the past empty-handed, my head held high, grateful just to be here. But I’d lying if I said those moments didn’t make this moment that much sweeter.” What a difference a year makes.

Watching Chalamet lean into certain qualities of Marty Masuer — even, at times, the less-than-admirable ones — you don’t see the second coming of Brando or Day-Lewis. You see someone who, in attempting to reach for those heights, pulls something uniquely exceptional out of himself. This is the first coming of Timothée Chalamet, the kid who dreamed of being near the level of his heroes and, as he walks proudly into this awards season, convinces you he might make this dream come true. Marty Supreme tells two stories of overcoming obstacles in pursuit of rarefied air — of wanting to “be up there.” Only one of them is fictional.

From Rolling Stone US.