When Does Casting Timotheé Chalamet Work?
A breakdown of the most mis-cast actor in Hollywood
Yesterday the trailer for the latest Timotheé Chalamet vehicle, Wonka was released and it almost killed me.
Ever since it was announced, I have been steadying myself for the first looks at this project. Yes, of course Chalamet is miscast in this, but the film is directed by Paul King — genius behind the unfathomably brilliant Paddington films! Surely it can’t be too bad.
Now I know, if Paul King can overcome what is about to be one of the most disastrous movie star performances of all time, he should be considered amongst the finest directors to ever live.
Chalamet is not a gifted actor, and that’s completely fine. There are many movie stars who are not gifted actors, but are capable of leading a film, or becoming better actors with time.
Think George Clooney, an actor whose abilities have grown considerably, but who initially relied on presence, charm, and an innate un-teachable charisma.
Another example slightly further down the talent spectrum is Keanu Reeves, a very limited performer who has led some of the most iconic films in history. You might ask: How do you lead a film like The Matrix or Ocean’s 11 without being able to act?This is where things become a bit nebulous.
The difference between Chalamet, and other stars of his talent level like Reeves and Clooney — is how he has been casted and directed. Right now, I believe Chalamet is viewed in the same way a young Leonardo DiCaprio was. This is a massive mistake, indicative of a problem with how studios and directors are interpreting the draw of modern leading actors.
On a superficial level, the ties between the two are obvious: both came on the scene as — for lack of a better word — twinks. They are cute, effeminate, floppy-haired pretty boys, and therefore a cultural response to gruff, manly, unemotional leading men.
Now, Leo’s face and energy have shifted with age, but before that he was still most often cast far better than Chalamet. Films like Catch Me If You Can, Titanic, and The Aviator primarily require him to be charming, and extremely high-energy. The gravitas which he is now capable of bringing to a picture, did not come until later.
Chalamet has the same ability that young Leo had. He is an objectively beautiful person, who simultaneously gives off effortless charm, and NYU boy who you date until they start messaging your little sister.
When he is deployed with great specificity — as buffoonish, whiny, self-pitying, or overtly douchey — he is a very effective character actor. Wes Anderson, and Greta Gerwig especially seem to understand this, as both have used him to play over-confident, naive, young men in The French Dispatch and Ladybird respectively.
Gerwig again, and Luca Guadagnino can also bring out a lighter, warmer touch in Chalamet. In Call me By Your Name, Chalamet is very compelling. In Little Women, he gives his finest performance.
All of these performances exist in the same oeuvre. And this is where he should live. Instead, sprinkled between these performances Chalamet is continuously thrown at audiences in blockbusters that do not understand him.
He gives a disastrous performance in The King, a Shakespeare adaptation that requires a gravitas that Chalamet simply does not possess (yet). Similarly, a movie like Don’t Look Up (perhaps the most poorly cast movie I have ever seen) asks Chalamet to bust out comedic chops that he has never once demonstrated on-screen.
Even a film like Dune, which by every metric was a rousing success of a production, misuses Chalamet. When the dialogue and mannerisms of the alien universe Dune depicts are such that the performances feel intentionally stilted, Chalamet falters compared to the other great performers around him.
I would not so far as to say he gives a bad performance in Dune. But during the frequent moments of psychological tension, where mental duress has to be conveyed solely on the actor’s face, Chalamet’s presence is just too small. One cannot help but feel there were other stars better suited to the part.
As everyone used to say about Brad Pitt — he might be too pretty for his own good.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like studios are going to stop trying to cram this square peg into the round hole of movie stardom anytime soon. Wonka, I fear is just the latest in a growingly long line of missteps for Chalamet.
Whether casting for an evolution on the Johnny Depp performance, the Gene Wilder performance, or an entirely new take straight from the source material (they’re clearly not doing that, though) Chalamet is a baffling choice any way you spin it.
He’s rarely funny, certainly not whimsical or musical, and he completely lacks any of the menace that makes Willy Wonka a unique character for a children’s story.
Concluding from the trailer that King and Chalamet are likely not trying to conjure any memory of the now-canceled Johnny Depp — but it’s hard not to draw parallels between their careers as well.
Depp too began as a beautiful, dark, angular young actor with a lot of presence and not a lot of acting skill. But he found a niche in the world of Tim Burton, which allowed him to fully flesh out his movie star persona. His falters came — like Chalamet’s — when he tried to find a deeper, more traditionally masculine tone in films like Black Mass or Public Enemies
If we’re leaving behind any sense of Depp, Roald Dahl, or Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I can only assume that they wish to capture some of magic of Wilder’s 1971 performance.
Now that makes this entire project is a non-starter. As any kid can probably tell you, what makes Wonka so compelling is precisely that we do not know his origins. He is mysterious, enigmatic, and most crucially, a bit scary!
The second you dig into the background of this character, to me the magic is gone.
We don’t want to know Wonka, we loved him already.
After this, I’ll be hoping Chalamet works more frequently with those who properly understand him. I do firmly believe he’s quite good when cast properly.