Do we like Timothée Chalamet?
Our score: 8 out of 10. He's put his own money behind LGBTQ+ causes and refused to profit from a film tied to accusations; the ballet gaffe is just a gaffe.
Chalamet's breakout was Call Me by Your Name, which put him in the Oscar race as a young man. That's the backdrop for the best-known stoush in his career: his decision in 2018 to cut ties with a Woody Allen film he'd already shot. The thin spot in this card is the early backstory, because the best reporting I could open focused on the controversies rather than his upbringing.
On the Allen film, Chalamet said he'd learned that a good role isn't the only criterion for taking a job. He gave his pay from the project to Time's Up, the LGBT Center in New York and the sexual abuse charity RAINN. In his memoir, Allen alleged Chalamet's public stance was a strategic move to help his Oscar chances; that's Allen's claim, not an established fact.
On the harm test, there's nothing ugly on the record. In 2019 he was offered $1,000 for a charity of his choice on a Golden Globes red carpet and picked the LGBTQ centre in New York. In 2020 he told his Instagram followers to “vote that fucker out” about Donald Trump, which is a political stance, not a harmful one.
His biggest recent wobble is the ballet and opera row. At a CNN and Variety town hall with Matthew McConaughey, he said he didn't want to work in those fields because “no one cares about this anymore”, then added a nod of respect. New York City Ballet's Megan Fairchild pushed back, and Seattle Opera cheekily offered fans a discount code in his name.
It was a dumb, flippant line that landed badly just before awards night, but it's a gaffe about art forms, not a dig at people. He's been teased for it since, including by an Oscars host. I couldn't find anything newer than the spring that changes the picture, so there's nothing fresh on him lately.
The good stuff is simple: he gave up real money on principle, and he put LGBTQ+ causes on the list when he did. We found no lawsuit against him or sign of him being a nightmare to work with. The gaps are the usual ones: I couldn't open much on his co-stars' views of him, so this rests on a short but clean record.