Timothée Chalamet on Why He Lost Out on Maze Runner, Divergent Roles

While Timothée Chalamet has cemented his name in Hollywood, his path to get here wasn’t what he initially had in mind.

The Oscar-nominated actor recently shared in an interview for the cover of Rolling Stone U.K. that he was aiming for roles in action movies early in his career such as Maze Runner and Divergent, however, he was consistently shut down due to his body type.

“I would always get the same feedback, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,’” Chalamet recalled. “I had an agent call me once and say, ‘I’m tired of getting the same feedback. We’re gonna stop submitting you for these bigger projects, because you’re not putting on weight.’ I was trying to put on weight. I couldn’t! I basically couldn’t. My metabolism or whatever the fuck couldn’t do it.”

That led the Dune: Part Two star to pursue more indie projects, including Call Me By Your Name (which earned him a best actor Oscar nom), Lady Bird, Beautiful Boy and Little Women, which ultimately was his claim to fame.

“I was knocking on one door that wouldn’t open,” Chalamet said, referring to action films. “So I went to what I thought was a more humble door, but actually ended up being explosive for me.”

The Wonka actor was eventually able to prove himself in the blockbuster space, having starred in filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s Dune franchise. Fans will next see him portray legendary musician Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, which hits theaters Dec. 25.

Chalamet added that his earlier acting roles were “so personal and vulnerable. There’s an intimacy to that work that I hear in Bob’s early music, in his early folk songs,” he continued, seizing the metaphor, “but eventually you want to use different instruments.”