Timothée Chalamet recalls agent telling him to ‘put on weight’ for acting career

Timothée Chalamet was once told to gain some “weight” if he wanted a strong career in Hollywood.

While discussing his career, the actor opened up about some limitations he has faced in the film industry due to his appearance.

In a recent interview with Zane Lowe, the Oscar-nominated actor shared that certain roles have been less accessible to him, noting that he has sometimes felt typecast.

Speaking about his upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, Chalamet explained that he connects with some of the "outsider" qualities that Dylan embodied, finding parallels in his own experiences within Hollywood.

“I’ve had a life experience, I don’t want to say it’s weird, but I can relate to some of these things he went through,” he explained.

“Bob wanted to be a rock & roll star — Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis Presley — that was the sort of, depending on your point of view, the sort of rice crispy pop, rock & roll music that was saturated and marketed to kids in the late ’50s. Equally, I wanted to be a big movie actor.”

The Call Me By Your Name star continued, “But 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 like, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body. I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You got to put on weight,’ basically, not aggressively, but you know.”

However, Chalamet managed to pave his own path in Hollywood, gaining recognition primarily through critically acclaimed indie films.

His journey includes standout roles in Beautiful Boy alongside Steve Carell, as well as Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Little Women.

Early on, he also delivered compelling performances in films like Miss Stevens and Hot Summer Nights, which helped establish himself as a prominent talent in the industry.

“I found my way into these very personalized movies,” Chalamet said.

“For [Dylan], it was folk music … Those were smaller budget but very — I don’t know how else to put it — personable movies that started in this theater space. This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it.”