Timothée Chalamet can’t catch a break (13/3/25)

Everyone says that Timothée Chalamet is the next Leonardo DiCaprio. The academy may have taken it a bit to literally.

The curtains have closed on a surprisingly successful Oscars Ceremony. Mikey Maddison beat out Demi Moore to Best Actress in a narrative not too dissimilar to Moore’s film, The Substance. Sean Baker waved the flag for independent cinema as his film, Anora, took home five wins. And much to everyone's delight, Emilia Pérez went home with only two Oscars. Which still seems like too much.

By its own standards, the 97th Oscars Ceremony was a success. Unless you were Timothée Chalamet, who went home empty-handed. Again.

Losing is becoming a recurring theme for Chalamet. He turns up, shows his face and musters up the strength to not act like a sore loser when his name isn’t called. It’s becoming quite a skill.

He is a better man than me because if I had been nominated 23 different times at different award shows and only won once, I would have stopped turning up years ago.

You would imagine this loss stung the most for him. Having the opportunity to beat the current holder for the youngest winner of Best Actor, Adrien Brody, and become the youngest himself at 29 would have been a romantic start to his Oscar collection. But sadly for Chalament, life isn’t as beautifully written as his roles are.

His latest streak of losses at award shows came from his work on James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. Despite the film being another basic, run-of-the-mill musical biopic, Chalament injects life into the tired genre. His work as Bob Dylan is some of his best to date, which isn’t surprising considering he had practised for five years.

But just like the revolutionary folk singer, Chalamet doesn’t want to settle for being good. He wants to be the best. 

In the speech for his win at the 2025 SAG Awards this year, he expressed his desire to be one of the greats, just like Marlon Brando, Daniel Day-Lewis and Viola Davis. It's a high bar, but if that's the ceiling he is aiming for, he doesn’t have to worry just yet. After all, Brando was 30 when he won his first Oscar. Day-Lewis was 32 after receiving his and Davis had to wait until she was 51 to get her recognition from the Academy, so he still has a few years left to get the first chalked off.

Despite him argubly deserving to win this year, his time to get his hands on film's most prestigious award must be around the corner. 

He is careful in the roles he picks. His eagerness to work and learn from the best directors inject new life into him every year. Greta Gerwig, Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve and Luca Guardagnio, where he earned his first Oscar Nomination for his performance in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, are the best in the business and have all credited the actor for his growth and sheer dedication to the craft.

There is no wonder he is often compared to Leonardo Di Caprio. He too had to wait until he was 42 to get his hands on the trophy, despite it coming from 2015’s The Revenant, arguably one of his worst roles. Let’s hope Chalamet doesn’t have to nearly die to get the recognition he deserves.

An award isn’t necessary to be one of the greats. Regardless of how his career pans out, if he continues to perform to the level he is now he will be considered one of the best. But will that satisfy him? Probably not. 

If I was him I wouldn't worry. Well, I would do a lot of things differently if I were him but that's beside the point.

His up-and-coming 2025 release Marty Supreme, directed by the first half of the Safdie brothers Josh Safdie, will no doubt be up for contention. But knowing his luck, he will lose out to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who is staring in The Smashing Machine, directed by the other Safdie brother, Benny. 

I dread to think what he might do to himself to win that Oscar if this happens.

It’ll be telling to see where he is in the next few years. He will either be running out of space on his shelf for his Oscars, or in a sea of outstanding performances, he will have nothing to show for it, cementing himself as everyone’s favourite loser.