Timothée Chalamet was told to gain weight to land major movie roles.
Timothee Chalamet was told to gain weight
The 'Wonka' actor will play folk legend Bob Dylan in biopic 'A Complete Unknown' and he explained he was able to relate to the legendary musician because he felt like an "outsider" within his own career until he was able to carve out his own path.
Speaking on 'The Zane Lowe Show' on Apple Music 1, he said: "I've had a life experience, I want to say it's weird, but I can relate to some of these things he went through.
"So Bob wanted to be a rock and roll star, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, that was, depending on your point of view, the sort of rice crispy pop rock and roll music that was saturated and marketed to kids in the late ‘50s. Equally, I wanted to be a big movie actor.
"But if I auditioned for the 'Maze Runner' or 'Divergent', things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, 'Oh, you don't have the right body.'
"I had an agent that called me and said, 'You got to put on weight', basically, not aggressively, but you know. And then, I found my way into these very personalised movies or something, for him, it was folk music. He couldn't keep a rock and roll band because they would all get hired by other kids that had more money, literally, in Minnesota."
The 28-year-old star found taking on "personable movies" helped him find his "flow" with his work.
He added: "So for me, it was finding a very personal style movie, 'Call Me by Your Name' or Beautiful Boy' or 'Lady Bird' or 'Little Women', 'Miss Stevens', 'Hot Summer Nights'. Those were smaller budget, but very... I don't know how else to put it. ... personable movies that started in this theatre space. This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it."
Listen to the full interview at https://music.apple.com/us/curator/the-zane-lowe-show/990050553 or watch at https://youtu.be/-6RGcPQuzog
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