Early Life and Education
Chalamet grew up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. His French father was an editor who worked for UNICEF, while his American mother was a dancer and Broadway performer. A young Chalamet developed an enthusiasm for everything from Broadway plays to sports. Growing up, he spent summers in France with his family.
Chalamet’s older sister, Pauline, is also an actor. He has many other family ties to showbiz. His aunt Amy Lippman is a producer and writer whose projects include Party of Five and Masters of Sex, uncle Rodman Flender works as a TV director, and his grandfather was screenwriter and novelist Harold Flender.
In addition to his family, Chalamet has credited the time he was 12 and saw Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight with him wanting to become an actor.
Chalamet attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, the Manhattan school that inspired the movie and TV show Fame. Chalamet took his school’s performing arts focus into other classes, such as when he made a rap video—as “Lil’ Timmy Tim”—about statistics.
Actor Ansel Elgort was one of Chalamet’s high school classmates; on one red carpet, Chalamet and Elgort each said the other was more popular in school. Their drama teacher told Vanity Fair, “They were both like rock stars in a way, in a school full of rock stars. Everybody recognized them as being particularly gifted.”
After graduating, Chalamet spent a year at Columbia University. However, while talking to McConaughey for Interview magazine, Chalamet admitted he “floundered” there because it was difficult to return to the strictures of school after getting to make movies. Chalamet also set up his own major at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Lily Rose Depp, October 2018 — April 2020
Lily Rose Depp and Timmy’s romance started in October 2018, after they worked together on Netflix’s The King. They were spotted kissing in New York around the same time, with a source telling Us Weekly, «They were pretty playful and flirty with each other.»
Stephane Cardinale — Corbis//Getty Images
News of the pair’s split came in April 2020, when Timothée appeared in the May 2020 issue of British Vogue and his relationship status was referred to as ‘single’. Us Weekly also confirmed news of the break up the same day — though it’s unclear why they went separate ways.
In November 2020, Chalamet opened up to about the kissing photos, and what he said is actually quite sad. «I went to bed that night thinking that was one of the best days of my life.
«I was on this boat all day with someone I really loved, and closing my eyes, I was like, indisputably, ‘That was great.’ And then waking up to all these pictures, and feeling embarrassed, and looking like a real knob? All pale?»
Lady Bird
Chalamet enjoyed a role in another Oscar-nominated 2017 film: Lady Bird. In this movie he portrays Kyle Scheible, one of the title character’s love interests. Chalamet said he tried to humanize the guitar-playing high schooler, hoping that viewers will “see that character as an antagonist that is genuinely suffering, has real emotions, and is living a sad existence.”
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird’s director, has said she considers Chalamet “a young Christian Bale crossed with a young Daniel Day-Lewis with a sprinkle of young Leonardo DiCaprio, and then raised speaking French in Manhattan and given a Mensa-level IQ and a love of hip-hop.”
Call Me By Your Name
In 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, Chalamet portrays 17-year-old Elio Perlman, who develops a crush on, enters into a sexual relationship with, and ends up truly loving Oliver (played by Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old graduate student staying with Elio’s family in Italy in the summer of 1983. Chalamet’s luminous performance as the young, vulnerable Elio was consistently applauded. In addition to his Academy Award nomination, Chalamet was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and he received best actor awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Call Me By Your Name is based on André Aciman’s 2007 novel of the same name; the screenplay is by James Ivory, and the film was directed by Luca Guadagnino. Chalamet was 17 when he first talked to Guadagnino about the film, and Guadagnino said that when he met Chalamet, “I really felt immediately that he had the ambition, the intelligence, the sensitivity, the naiveté, and the artistry to be Elio.” (While the movie was being developed, the director also saw Chalamet shine Off-Broadway in John Patrick Shanley’s Prodigal Son.)
Prior to filming, Chalamet spent a month and a half in Italy to prepare for the role. As Elio speaks French, Italian, and English, Chalamet learned Italian; he also studied piano and guitar. When Hammer arrived three weeks before filming, Chalamet was able to guide the older actor around, and the time they spent together allowed them to forge an easy relationship that helped create onscreen chemistry.
As he accepted one award for his performance, Chalamet addressed director Guadagnino: “I’ll be endlessly thankful and stupefied that you put an actor with so little street cred as myself into a role as layered, and complex, and contradictory, and confused as Elio Perlman.”
Sarah Talabi, April 2022
This just in from Instagram gossip page @Deuxmoi! They received a tip off that Timothée had been getting up close and personal with model and influencer Sarah Talabi at Coachella festival, with an onlooker submitting a photo of them together with the unverified claim which read, «Timothée Chalamet was dancing with and kissing Victoria’s Secret model Sarah Talabi at Coachella.»
Sarah also shared an Instagram Story of her own, writing «Had the best time with the best group of people,” and tagging Chalamet’s handle along with her twin sister Leah and a friend.
Since then, the 22-year-old model has spoken out to confirm she did indeed spend time over the weekend with Timothée, but she kept her cards close to her chest about whether they’re dating.
«Everyone is asking me if I was kissing Timothée Chalamet at Coachella, and that is a good question. But a great question would be asking our world leaders why the Earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year due to global warming and why climate crisis reform has been completely ineffective.» That’s a pretty impressive deflection if ever we’ve seen one.
Dating History
In 2013, Chalamet was sometimes seen out with Lourdes Leon, a high school classmate who is Madonna’s daughter. The two also appeared together in a school production of Sweet Charity.
When a 2017 interview with The Guardian veered into talk about relationships, Chalamet said, “I have experienced heartbreak but not in a classical sense.” He then added, “I have this sense of independent heartbreak, of annulling romances before they get their feet off the ground… with one girl in particular.” He’s also told W magazine, “Date is very much a scary word, because then that context has been established.”
For awhile, red carpet events didn’t revealed much of Chalamet’s romantic life—in 2018, he took his mother to the SAG Awards and attended the Golden Globes with his sister—though he was spotted smooching The King actor Lily-Rose Depp that October. In April 2020, it was reported that Chalamet and Depp had ended their largely private relationship.
In spring 2023, rumors began that Chalamet was dating reality TV star and model Kylie Jenner. That June, the couple was photographed together for the first time. In , Chalamet has discussed his desire to have a private relationship.
Taylor Russell, November 2022
Timothée sparked rumours amongst fans that he’s dating his Bones And All co-star Taylor Russell, after posting a cute photo of the pair together on Instagram.
Daniele Venturelli//Getty Images
Bones And All saw Timmy and Taylor playing a pair of young cannibals trying to survive on the outskirts of society, in a project directed by the same person as Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino. So, yep, not the most cheerful topic.
While their latest Insta snap has prompted dating speculation from fans, reps have reiterated this is just a photo of the pair in character while shooting a scene for the film.
Neither Timmy nor Taylor have commented, and it sounds like they may just be friends and co-stars.
View full post on Instagram
So there you go.
#MeToo, Time’s Up, and Woody Allen
Another film that prominently features Chalamet is Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day In New York City. Chalamet filmed his scenes with co-stars Selena Gomez and Elle Fanning in 2017. However, the advent of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements—which called out the sexual harassment, assault, discrimination, and predatory behavior that many powerful figures (predominantly men) have gotten away with in both the film industry and society at large—drew attention to Allen’s past and raised questions for Chalamet about his choice to sign on with Allen.
Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, has said that he sexually assaulted her when she was 7 years old. Allen has always denied these allegations, and for years, Hollywood’s top talent continued to appear in his movies. But that has since changed, and in a January 2018 Instagram post, Chalamet wrote, “I am learning that a good role isn’t the only criteria for accepting a job—that has become much clearer to me in the past few months, having witnessed the birth of a powerful movement intent on ending injustice, inequality and above all, silence.”
Chalamet’s Instagram post also shared that he was going to donate his salary from Allen’s film to the Time’s Up campaign; the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network; and New York’s LGBT Center, making him one of many actors who have donated their salaries from Allen films. In the post, Chalamet also stated he couldn’t say more due to contractual obligations (though reports have questioned whether his contract actually prevented his speaking out).
Chalamet also expressed his support for Time’s Up at the 2018 SAG Awards, telling E! News, “With the centralization, the Time’s Up movement and hopefully at award shows like this, conversation’s getting out there. Equality in the workplace, 50/50 by 2020, these are messages that are getting out there now.”