Actor Timothée Chalamet was first nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards for his breakout role in “Call Me By Your Name.” Since then, he is better recognized for the “Dune” films and most recently, “A Complete Unknown,” where he plays Bob Dylan. Playing Dylan earned Chalamet his second Best Actor Oscar nomination. Had he won Best Actor this year, he would have been the youngest actor to win. He was beaten by Adrien Brody, who currently holds the record that Chalamet was slated to break.
Chalamet’s major nominations include two Oscars, four Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, six Critics’ Choice Awards and seven Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. He took home his first major award at this year’s SAG Awards, held on Feb. 23, and made SAG history as the youngest Best Actor winner.
Chalamet’s acceptance speech differed from many nonchalant, humble speeches typically heard from actors. He began by clarifying he knew the classy thing to do would be to downplay how much the award means to him. Despite that, he showed great pride in his achievement, saying it was “the honor of a lifetime playing [Bob Dylan].”
What sparked discussion and controversy from his speech was when he said, “I’m really in pursuit of greatness … I want to be one of the greats; I’m inspired by the greats.” Chalamet specifically mentioned Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando and Viola Davis as actors he looks up to. He is just as inspired by athletes Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps.
Despite his disclaimer, his speech was controversial. Many people have taken to social media praising Chalamet for the unprecedented speech, saying they want to see more pride and drive for awards instead of laid back responses. Others have said his speech sounds entitled and that he is too young to want awards that badly.
Television personality Melissa Grelo did not view his speech positively. On “The Social Podcast,” she claimed that “there’s inside thoughts and outside thoughts and [Chalamet] just blurted it out. I just thought to myself, ‘you little brat.’” She continued with, “Guess who determines if you’re great? Your audience, not you, so sit down.” But Chalamet never claimed to be one of the greats, just that he’s in pursuit of greatness.
At the Oscars, Brody accepted the award for Best Actor, also delivering a rather controversial acceptance speech. The speech is now the longest in Oscar history, coming in at five minutes and 40 seconds. Winners are typically allotted 45 seconds to say their speech, and if someone goes over the allotted time, music from the orchestra gives them a signal to wrap it up. Brody, however, told the orchestra to stop playing so he could finish and then rambled on for five minutes.
In telling the orchestra to stop, he said he had “done this before,” meaning he had won an Oscar and given a speech before. That should not factor into the length of the speech, especially because earlier in the night, one of the winners for Best Sound Mixing was harshly cut off by the music with none of his speech heard on the telecast. By Brody’s logic, if you have an Oscar, you can personally quiet the orchestra and talk for as long as you want.
Hopefully Chalamet will continue to put on award-worthy performances in years to come. He is set to star in “Dune: Messiah” and “Marty Supreme,” both slated to be released in Dec. 2026.
