Timothée Chalamet Says He Was Body-Shamed While Auditioning For Major Roles

Timothée Chalamet is opening up about facing criticism over his appearance early on in his Hollywood career.
While speaking with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, the “Dune” star, 28, revealed that he was once told he was too thin to star in certain major roles.
“If I auditioned for ‘The Maze Runner’ or ‘Divergent,’ things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,’” Chalamet recalled. “I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You got to put on weight,’ basically — not aggressively, but, you know.”
Chalamet, who stars as Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic “A Complete Unknown,” compared his experience of finding his way in Hollywood to the singer’s early days as an obscure folk musician.
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“I found my way into these very personalized movies,” he explained. “For [Dylan], it was folk music. He couldn’t keep a rock and roll band because they would all get hired by other kids that had more money, literally, in Minnesota. So for me, it was finding a very personal-style movie.”
Those early rejections worked out in his favor, as the heartthrob went on to discover his confidence by starring in more niche roles in movies like “Call Me By Your Name,” “Beautiful Boy” and “Lady Bird.”
“Those were smaller-budget, but very — I don’t know how else to put it — personable movies that started in this theater space,” he said of those films. “This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it.”
Watch Chalamet’s interview on YouTube.