When Timothée Chalamet accepted the SAG Award for Best Actor Sunday night, he stunned the A-list room into silence.
In a moment of pure New York bravado, the 29-year-old star controversially announced, “I want to be one of the greats.”
The megawatt names that the “A Complete Unknown” star desires to be spoken in the same breath as?
“I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps,” he said.
Well, then.
That recitation of his vision board was the latest move in one of the strangest — and most hypnotically watchable — awards campaigns in memory.
No staid Arts & Leisure profiles for this guy. Instead, he’s staged weird and silly stunts galore — all over the world.
The absurdity has kept him in the public eye without the usual yawn-inducing, perfunctory interviews and comatose photo ops that make award season feel like a black-tie morgue.
And, as his SAG win Sunday night showed, the visibility has kept the young actor as a formidable contender in an Oscar race that had previously been “Brutalist” star Adrien Brody’s to lose. Here comes Timmy.
Setting the tone for months of madness, back in October, he crashed a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park.
Swoopy-haired men arrived in Greenwich Village dressed as Willy Wonka, Elio and Bob Dylan. Nobody knew the genuine article would show up, though, and craziness ensued. The event was dispersed by cops and the identical organizers were fined.
After that news story exploded, celebrity lookalike contests became a huge trend.
There were definitely no Timmy doppelgängers on ESPN’s College GameDay, which he surprisingly guested on two months later. The actor confused football aficionados when he appeared as a commentator — and actually knew what he was talking about.
“Timothee Chalamet being a real deal college football fan, being a SMU fan, and knowing about all these teams was so crazy to me,” wrote Ringer’s Chris Vernon on X (formerly Twitter). “I thought just invited cause famous, but he was a legit great guest picker on College Gameday.”
And now, for something completely different. Later in December, Chalamet live-streamed a 14-minute interpretive dance from a dimly lit warehouse to “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas.
As Bob Dylan footage was projected, he smashed a guitar and ripped off his tank top.
Nothing made any sense. I loved it.
Of course, there are the outfits. Chalamet has donned an eccentric Dylan-inspired look for every award show and premiere this season. While wearing one at the London debut of “A Complete Unknown,” he rode a bike to the red carpet and got a $79 fine for parking it improperly.
In January, the actor became the first “SNL” host to do double-duty as the musical guest in the same episode. On the show, he performed Dylan’s lesser-known 1963 song “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” and jumped into the iTunes top 30 overnight.
Like some extended inside joke from “Arrested Development,” he even brought the Chalamet lookalikes on “SNL” with him.
None of this lunacy would be nearly as appealing had Chalamet not been extraordinary in his movie. He is, and so the actor is having a good time doing something the public loves: entertaining us offscreen, too.
Will it all pay off at the Oscars on Sunday?
Hard to say. Brody is still the favorite, having already won the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award.
But 17 of the past 20 SAG Best Actor winners have gone on to win the same prize at the Academy Awards. He could very well clinch it.
Ultimately, Chalamet’s “I want to be one of the greats” speech, abrupt though it may have been, and his obsessed-over press tour have left a distinct impression — that he probably will be one of the greats.
Start with the fact that he’s not even 30, is already a two-time Best Actor Oscar nominee and has starred in seven Best Picture-nominated movies.
And, of everybody in the Academy Award acting categories, Chalamet is the biggest box office draw: “Dune: Part Two” and “A Complete Unknown” have grossed a combined $820 million at the worldwide box office.
The acclaim, the money and the youthful fun all add up to a rarity in 2025: A real movie star.
