The secret to Timothée Chalamet's success? You're looking at it
May we offer you a lesson in hairography
LET’S DO a postmortem on Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar run. You know, just for fun. The 30-year-old actor was, at one point in early winter, the odds-on favourite to win Best Actor thanks to his role as a swaggering ping-pong player in Marty Supreme. Then, a slew of own goals. Was that career retrospective with American Cinematheque too premature? Were the matching orange outfits with his partner Kylie Jenner too silly? Were his comments about opera and ballet too offensive? You could make an educated guess about all such things – indeed, I have here and here – but I would like to offer one reason, which stands head and shoulders above the rest: his hair.
That’s right! I am that shallow. When young Chalamet melted our collective rationality with his sad boyfriend-y role in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, it was easy to buy into the first half of his French-American nationality. He had the right name, and the waifish body that only a diet of cigarettes and baguettes can bestow. He had, and this is important, dark curls that cascaded around his face. From there, it was fun to see that look twisted into a jerky teen heartbreaker in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and as sullen space prince Paul in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. Throughout it all – from Northern Italy to California to Arrakis – Chalamet retained his signature curls. The type of hair that launches a thousand grooming articles. Good luck with that journey.
The boy wonder lost his curls sometime last year (though he had debuted a shorter ‘do on the press tour for A Complete Unknown). Probably to film the final third in the Dune franchise, in which his young prince rises to power thanks to his supernatural powers and battlefield prowess. But when he is settled in as a newly-minted messiah figure, Paul’s story takes a few dark turns. Look, I won’t make a case of life imitating art – too cheap and Paul ends up in a dark place – but when Chalamet revealed the buzzcut last year, the effect was… immediate.
Out were the tailored suits and knitwear and sense of ennui. In were tracksuits and windbreakers and Marty Supreme merch. I thought that was all good fun – and, to be honest, a little closer to the New Yorker’s heart – but it was definitely a startling rebrand. If you had bought into Timothée, you were suddenly confronted with his schoolboy rap persona Lil Timmy Tim. There was some snobbery involved: around Chalamet’s new look and his partner and how a young actor should act. Most of that is laughable to anyone who has actually spent time with a young Frenchman: it is not exactly Descartes 24/7. But it is impossible to deny that there was a brash ambition to his public appearances, a sense of speaking before thinking.
Chalamet will weather all this, of course. He is talented and makes good choices. His career will be long. One day, he will win an Oscar. But one quick fix for spring? Let’s put down the shears.
This article first appeared on Esquire UK
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