‘The King’ First Hinted At Timotheé Chalamet’s Major Career Rebrand

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Timothée Chalamet is moving forward after the recent attention around his attendance at a ballet and opera performance, and his career choices seem to have shifted intentionally since a 2019 Netflix film. For about ten years, he played smaller roles in shows like Law & Order and Homeland, and the film Interstellar. But after being nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name—one of four movies he starred in that year—his career really began to take off.

Two years after his earlier roles, Timothée Chalamet starred as the lead in David Michôd’s ambitious historical drama, The King, which was based on Shakespeare’s history plays. Despite some historical liberties, the film was widely praised, with particularly strong performances receiving a lot of attention. Looking back seven years later, The King stands out as a turning point in Chalamet’s career – a move from smaller, independent films to larger, more popular blockbusters. With the trailer for Dune 3 recently released, it’s a good time to remember his impressive performance in The King!

Timotheé Chalamet’s Early Career Was Marked by Smaller Supporting Roles


Netflix

Timothée Chalamet started his acting career with a couple of short films in 2008. He landed his first television role in 2009 on an episode of Law & Order. By 2012, he had become a regular cast member on the USA Network show Royal Pains and the popular Showtime series Homeland. After gaining recognition on TV, Chalamet appeared in three movies in 2014, with a particularly notable role in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

While Timothée Chalamet gained early experience with smaller roles in films like Worst Friends and Jason Bateman’s Men, Women & Children in 2014, his brief appearance in Interstellar hinted at the potential for larger, more prominent roles – roles that wouldn’t fully materialize for another five years. However, 2017 proved to be a pivotal year for his career. He starred in four films, most notably Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino’s critically acclaimed and moving story about growing up and first love, which launched him into the spotlight.

In 2017, Chalamet appeared in several notable films. He had supporting roles in the Civil War drama Hostiles and the critically acclaimed coming-of-age story Lady Bird. He also starred in Hot Summer Nights, a less successful film where he played a teenager dealing drugs on Cape Cod in the 1990s.

‘The King’ Announced Chalamet as a Blockbuster Leading Man


Netflix

Working on The King prepared Timothée Chalamet for leading roles in bigger films. He proved he could handle large-scale, blockbuster movies just as well as the smaller, more intimate independent projects he’d previously done, demonstrating his ability to perform alongside established actors.

2017 was a breakout year for Timothée Chalamet, establishing him as a leading actor, and he continued to balance independent films with more mainstream projects. In 2018, he delivered critically praised performances as a drug addict in Beautiful Boy and as a romantic lead in A Rainy Day in New York. The following year saw him move towards larger blockbuster roles, but he still collaborated with Greta Gerwig in a supporting role for Little Women (2019) and Luca Guadagnino as the star of Bones and All (2021).

David Michôd directs and co-wrote the screenplay for The King, alongside Joel Edgerton, who also stars in the film. It’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s Henriad stories, focusing on the young King Henry V (Timothée Chalamet) and his ascension to the throne at age 25 in 1413. The film follows Henry as he deals with political scheming, a war started by his father, King Henry IV (Ben Mendelsohn), and the weight of his family’s history, all while striving to rule with honor and integrity.

I was really excited to see The King when it came out in limited release on October 11, 2019 – it only played in 43 theaters! It was in cinemas for about three weeks before landing on Netflix. While it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office, the movie was a big production with a $23 million budget, and it definitely showed me that Timothée Chalamet has what it takes to be a huge action star if he gets the opportunity.

‘The King’ Paved the Way for Chalamet’s Starring Roles in ‘Dune’ and ‘Wonka’


Netflix

After receiving praise for his lead role in The King and demonstrating his ability to act alongside a talented group of performers, Timothée Chalamet started appearing in large-scale franchise films. In 2021, he headlined Denis Villeneuve’s ambitious adaptation of Dune (Part 1), proving he could successfully launch a big-budget movie – it cost $165 million to make and earned over $411 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

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In 2021, Timothée Chalamet began taking on bigger, more expensive film projects while still collaborating with acclaimed directors like Wes Anderson on The French Dispatch and Adam McKay on Don’t Look Up. As his popularity and reputation grew, so did his potential to lead major blockbuster films.

2024 saw even greater success for Dune: Part 2, earning $715 million worldwide on a $190 million budget and firmly establishing Timothée Chalamet as a leading actor. Beyond these huge hits that helped keep movie theaters thriving despite streaming, Chalamet starred as the title character in 2023’s Wonka, a prequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that started a new film series and performed well enough to guarantee a Wonka 2.

Timothée Chalamet’s career is soaring. From his early roles in independent films to now headlining blockbusters like the upcoming Wonka 2 and Dune: Part Three, he’s become a major movie star. His leading role in The King was his first big epic, and he’s been taking on increasingly large-scale projects ever since. With Oscar nominations for A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme under his belt, Chalamet seems destined for even greater success.



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2026-03-23 20:13