SAG Awards Winner Timothée Chalamet Said He Wants to Be “One of the Greats.” So How’s He Doing So Far In Comparison To The Likes Of Brando, Leo, Pacino, and Denzel?

Though he seems to have been considered an Oscar frontrunner for much of the season, Timothée Chalamet hadn’t actually won many major precursor prizes before last night’s Screen Actors Guild awards, where he won for playing Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown. As such, the message of Chalamet’s acceptance speech wasn’t as familiar as some of his colleagues – something Chalamet himself acknowledged as he said, in part:

“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is, this was five and a half years of my life. I can’t downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me… the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats, I’m inspired by the greats here tonight.”

He went on to name-check Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis – lofty company, to be sure, but intentionally so: He noted that he looks at these figures the way that sports fans might look at Michael Jordan, and considers them aspirational. Chalamet is certainly off to a roaring start; if he wins the Best Actor Oscar next weekend, he’ll squeak by Adrien Brody not just in this year’s competition, but in the record books, where Brody currently holds the record for youngest-ever Best Actor winner for The Pianist. (Chalamet would take that title by mere months.) Of course, personal tastes vary greatly when discussing performers’ greatness. But some objective comparisons can be made, too, so maybe this is an apt time to check in and compare where some of the greats were in comparison to Chalamet when they were on the cusp of 30.

First, let’s take some leeway from Chalamet’s eclectic group of three. Daniel Day-Lewis is a figure of near-impossible versatility and commitment, an actor who certainly can certainly do the movie-star thing but became known for disappearing into incredibly challenging roles. In other words, let’s not place those expectations on Chalamet (at least, not yet). Viola Davis, on the other hand, literally hadn’t appeared in a film or TV show until she was 30; she was a stage actress (and not an especially well-known one) until that point. A combination of her Juilliard training and the likely disadvantages she faced as a Black woman coming up in the 1990s make her an unproductive comparison point for a relatively privileged Manhattan-bred white kid like Chalamet. Marlon Brando, though; that’s an interesting one. To Brando, let’s add the similarly New York-y Al Pacino; Tom Hanks, for his genre versatility and everyman sensibility; Denzel Washington, for his mix of serious-actor bona fides and star-making charisma; and Leonardo DiCaprio, for his early rise from teen-heartthrob status.

• Marlon Brando

  Brando spent much of his early acting career on the stage, so it’s not surprising that Chalamet looks like more of a movie workhorse by comparison, having logged twenty-plus film appearances since his debut a decade ago. Brando, by contrast, had only done seven movies by around the age of 30. But his stage training meant that he originated the role of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, which then became a film in 1951, catapulting him to stardom. It also began an astonishing four-year run where he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar every year: for Streetcar, then the biopic Viva Zapata! and an adaptation of Julius Caesar, before finally winning for On the Waterfront in spring of 1955. Technically, the actual Oscar arrived when he was almost 31 – meaning that Chalamet could win his first one faster, if he triumphs for A Complete Unknown (hence that Brody record he might break). But this is only his second nomination. Brando’s early run, meanwhile, is unreal; the non-Oscar movie he made in between Caesar and Waterfront happens to be The Wild One, a biker picture that gives Brando an iconic look and accompanying famous exchange (“What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” “Whaddaya got?”). You can probably trace some kind of lineage from The Wild One to Elvis Presley to Bob Dylan to Chalamet’s imitation of same, which makes the overall comparison both apt and maybe deeply unfair. Then again, Brando had trouble matching the heights of his first five years in movies until The Godfather brought him back in 1972, so Chalamet might yet exceed his longevity or consistency, even if matching his highs is nearly impossible, presuming his Wonka top-hat will not endure the same way as The Wild One’s biker outfit.

• Al Pacino

  Brando’s on-screen son from The Godfather, Al Pacino, was a later bloomer in terms of film. At Chalamet’s current age, he had done exactly one movie: the now-forgotten Me, Natalie, in which he has a small role. But a few years later, he – like Brando – made the transition from stage roles to a legendary big-screen run where he was able to immediately jump into playing actual adults: The Panic in Needle Park, The Godfather and its sequel, Serpico, Scarecrow, and Dog Day Afternoon all happened for him between 30 and 35. Again, nearly impossible to equal in terms of pure quality, especially given that Pacino was a player in the New Hollywood that took far more artistic chances than most studios today. But if you want to bolster Chalamet’s record, you could point out that he may be as big a box office star in a far less forgiving star market, and that even if he loses his current Oscar competition, he will almost certainly get one before Pacino, who somehow didn’t win until the age of 52, for Scent of a Woman of all things.

• Tom Hanks

  Though he was more of a TV regular in his early years than Chalamet (who did the obligatory Law & Order guest spot, among others, but wasn’t a two-season sitcom star like Hanks on Bosom Buddies), Hanks’ early years are closer to Chalamet’s in spirit, in that there’s plenty of young-working-actor marginal roles and junk before he comes into his own as a star. Hanks turned 30 in the summer of 1986, at which point he had one big hit to his name (Splash) and a bunch of other movies that came across like poor-man’s versions of other people’s movies; Volunteers, Bachelor Party, The Man with One Red Shoe, and The Money Pit probably could have been collectively handled by the likes of Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and/or Dan Aykroyd. The Chalamet equivalent is teenage roles like those in Miss Stevens, Hot Summer Nights, Beautiful Boy, and Lady Bird – which is to say, far more prestigious than Bachelor Party. Not too long after turning 30, Hanks would get his next major break with Big, a hit and the occasion of his first Oscar nod – and also a sign that despite not playing as many teen roles, it would take him a little longer to fully grow up on screen. The same seems to be true of Chalamet, who still comes across like The Kid as he approaches 30 (and, like Hanks, seems to particularly love hosting SNL).

• Denzel Washington

  Another performer who honed his craft on stage and didn’t really get started on film until after 30, Washington at around Chalamet’s age had done two movies: Carbon Copy, and an adaptation of the play A Soldier’s Story, reprising a supporting role he had played Off-Broadway. He was also a few years into his breakthrough gig on the TV series St. Elsewhere. It wasn’t long after that show ended before Washington received his first Oscar nomination, for the 1987 film Cry Freedom; two years later, he won for the war drama Glory. So, awards-wise, Chalamet is running a little ahead of Washington; the challenge here is not just Washington’s nine-nomination Oscar run over his career, but his astonishing consistency as a leading-man draw. I think it’s fair to say that Chalamet hasn’t reached this level of gravitational pull yet.

• Leonardo DiCaprio

  Perhaps the closest comparison to Chalamet in terms of an early start, DiCaprio was also starring in movies and courting Oscar nominations in his early twenties. By 30, he had starred in the then-biggest movie of all time (Titanic), received one Oscar nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and acted in The Aviator, the movie that would give him his second; and worked with Martin Scorsese (twice), James Cameron, Danny Boyle, and Sam Raimi. Chalamet, meanwhile, has the two-part Dune as his Titanic equivalent; two Oscar nominations; and has worked with Luca Guadagnino (twice), Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, and Wes Anderson (so, an artier array of directors but more often in smaller parts). Seems pretty equal, minus the lack of absolute frenzy over Chalamet himself, whose fans, while dedicated and legion, do not seem quite as obsessive as Leo’s circa 1998. They even both did a lower-tier Woody Allen movie – though Chalamet’s came at a much less prestigious point in Allen’s checkered career.

With three hits in a row, Chalamet looks pretty handily like the biggest male movie star under 30 in Hollywood (Glen Powell, for example, is closer to 40 than 30), and may snag that Oscar sooner than anyone else before him. By most standards, he’s well ahead of the game. But by the standards he set in his SAG speech, he’ll be spending his whole career trying to catch up – which seems to be precisely his point. So just in case he needs some more motivation: Adam Driver, twelve years his senior but having entered Hollywood at a similar time, has already worked with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, Clint Eastwood, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Noah Baumbach, Leos Carax, Rian Johnson, Jim Jarmusch, Lena Dunham, Jeff Nichols, and Ridley Scott. Time to get cracking, Timmy!

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

The post SAG Awards Winner Timothée Chalamet Said He Wants to Be “One of the Greats.” So How’s He Doing So Far In Comparison To The Likes Of Brando, Leo, Pacino, and Denzel? appeared first on Decider.