Though he seems to have been considered an Oscar frontrunner for much of the season, Timothée Chalamet hadn’t actually won many major precursor prizes before last night’s Screen Actors Guild awards, where he won for playing Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown. As such, the message of Chalamet’s acceptance speech wasn’t as familiar as some of his colleagues – something Chalamet himself acknowledged as he said, in part:
“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is, this was five and a half years of my life. I can’t downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me… the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats, I’m inspired by the greats here tonight.”
He went on to name-check Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis – lofty company, to be sure, but intentionally so: He noted that he looks at these figures the way that sports fans might look at Michael Jordan, and considers them aspirational. Chalamet is certainly off to a roaring start; if he wins the Best Actor Oscar next weekend, he’ll squeak by Adrien Brody not just in this year’s competition, but in the record books, where Brody currently holds the record for youngest-ever Best Actor winner for The Pianist. (Chalamet would take that title by mere months.) Of course, personal tastes vary greatly when discussing performers’ greatness. But some objective comparisons can be made, too, so maybe this is an apt time to check in and compare where some of the greats were in comparison to Chalamet when they were on the cusp of 30.
First, let’s take some leeway from Chalamet’s eclectic group of three. Daniel Day-Lewis is a figure of near-impossible versatility and commitment, an actor who certainly can certainly do the movie-star thing but became known for disappearing into incredibly challenging roles. In other words, let’s not place those expectations on Chalamet (at least, not yet). Viola Davis, on the other hand, literally hadn’t appeared in a film or TV show until she was 30; she was a stage actress (and not an especially well-known one) until that point. A combination of her Juilliard training and the likely disadvantages she faced as a Black woman coming up in the 1990s make her an unproductive comparison point for a relatively privileged Manhattan-bred white kid like Chalamet. Marlon Brando, though; that’s an interesting one. To Brando, let’s add the similarly New York-y Al Pacino; Tom Hanks, for his genre versatility and everyman sensibility; Denzel Washington, for his mix of serious-actor bona fides and star-making charisma; and Leonardo DiCaprio, for his early rise from teen-heartthrob status.
With three hits in a row, Chalamet looks pretty handily like the biggest male movie star under 30 in Hollywood (Glen Powell, for example, is closer to 40 than 30), and may snag that Oscar sooner than anyone else before him. By most standards, he’s well ahead of the game. But by the standards he set in his SAG speech, he’ll be spending his whole career trying to catch up – which seems to be precisely his point. So just in case he needs some more motivation: Adam Driver, twelve years his senior but having entered Hollywood at a similar time, has already worked with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, Clint Eastwood, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Noah Baumbach, Leos Carax, Rian Johnson, Jim Jarmusch, Lena Dunham, Jeff Nichols, and Ridley Scott. Time to get cracking, Timmy!
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.