Timothée Chalamet Is Everything Leonardo DiCaprio Never Was

Chalamet's impressive filmography, committed performances, boyish charm, and feminine-handsome physiognomy are reminiscent of DiCaprio's prime heartthrob era, hence the constant comparisons. Few contemporary actors come close to Chalamet's star power. But is he really the "next DiCaprio" or something of an anti-DiCaprio? To understand why Chalamet is actually DiCaprio's total inversion, we have to understand what it is people see in Chalamet that is so reminiscent of Leo's rise.

Leonardo DiCaprio finds himself more often the butt of a joke at the hands of women than with the fawning devotion that once characterized his Titanic era heyday. He proved himself to be a promising up-and-coming talent, at the same time possessing a feminine handsomeness that appealed to the "female gaze." However, DiCaprio showed noticeable disinterest in this heartthrob moniker, wasting no time to shed its baggage. It's understandable, too, given heartthrob status is often posed at odds with having the gusto, the machismo, even, to be the next Brando, Pacino, De Niro, or what have you. The next generational talent in a long line of men with commanding screen presence who suck you in and convince you this is not acting but a glimpse into a parallel world.

So, DiCaprio, as some have pointed out on social media, really only possessed this boyish heartthrob persona for about four years, as his physicality swiftly tried to catch up with his feral desire to be a more grizzled leading man with chest and facial hair and a face that looks like it's seen some shit. A leading man who could cultivate male respectability. This familiar arc echoes in plenty of old heartthrobs who have been transformed into "literally me" male avatars of masculinity, like Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Ryan Gosling, and Robert Pattinson.

Just as studies have shown beautiful women are presumed to be less serious, the same thing seems to happen to men with a "feminine" quality to their beauty.

Male respectability tends not to co-exist with the femininity of vanity, and certainly not with a devoted female following. Just as studies have shown beautiful women are presumed to be less serious, the same thing seems to happen to men with a "feminine" quality to their beauty. DiCaprio was acutely aware of this and made sure to attach himself to Martin Scorsese's ship early, committing to performances that chipped away at the veneer of male beauty in exchange for the grit and grime of Oscar bait. As evidenced by DiCaprio, this transformation bleeds female followers, especially when the sacrifice of youthful facial femininity for grizzled machismo is combined with a womanizing reputation.

Chalamet and DiCaprio are cut from the same cloth, physically, according to TikToker Jen Capella, who claims to have cracked the code on the various archetypes of Hollywood handsome men with a formulated chart. Capella categorizes Hollywood men into three overarching categories of handsomeness: Prince, Warrior, and King, and four subtypes: Goblin, Elf, Human, and Dwarf. As she explains, DiCaprio started out in Hollywood as an Elf Prince but, like most Elf types, he lost his "elf" (or his delicateness) as he got older; what might be colloquially referred to as "twink death."

Capella more politely refers to it as "dwarfing," to mean a roughening of the features. The characteristics of Elf types are dainty and delicate, with prominent cheekbones, chiseled jawlines, and a feminine facial structure that adds beauty to their handsomeness. Most elves, she warns, lose their elvish qualities with age, but she points out an elusive type—the Elf King—whose elfness has permeated their lives. Such examples include David Bowie, Keanu Reeves, Daniel Dae Kim, and Ian Somerhalder.

Chalamet, much like DiCaprio, is starting to show signs of "dwarfing," in the sense that many of his elfin qualities were clearly a product of his youth. He's beginning to move into a different category of handsomeness, which Capella clarifies, is nothing shameful, just a different flavor of handsome altogether. Some women are elf-loyal and will always prefer the elf types (the boyish heartthrobs), which can make losing one of their own particularly devastating. Maybe it even recharacterizes their career.

The Many Faces of Timothée Chalamet

At 30 years old, Timothée Chalamet has made Oscar history by being the youngest male actor to earn three Best Actor Academy Award nominations since Marlon Brando. His first nomination was in Luca Guadagnino's 2018 film Call Me By Your Name, then last year's A Complete Unknown by James Mangold, and this year, for Josh Safdie's first solo project, Marty Supreme. Chalamet is nominated in both the Best Actor category and in a producing capacity for Best Picture. He is the youngest double-nominee to be nominated for acting and producing in the same year.

In a stacked acting category, it's difficult to say who has the better odds. Chalamet has real momentum, having already secured the Critics' Choice and Golden Globe wins. Kalshi markets have Chalamet forecast as winning with a 72% likelihood as of writing this. However, his fiercest competition comes, ironically, from something of a formidable Hollywood predecessor and mentor for the burgeoning star: Leonardo DiCaprio. The two worked together in the 2021 satire Don't Look Up, and Chalamet shares that DiCaprio gave him some invaluable career advice: "No hard drugs and no superhero movies." So far, he seems to have kept to that path.

DiCaprio stars in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, a thrilling epic that follows a washed-up revolutionary living in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off the grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter. The film has thirteen nominations to Marty Supreme's nine, and its politically salient subject matter is likely to be favored by The Academy overall. Still, Chalamet seems to be the fan favorite, and every major Oscar prediction seems to favor his odds.

He is the youngest double-nominee to be nominated for acting and producing in the same year.

Pre-breakout, Chalamet had played a minor role in the hit HBO series Homeland and played Matthew McConaughey's son in Interstellar, though much of his part was cut in the edit. He has appealed to that elvish quality by maintaining a hyper-slim frame, often being cast in quintessentially skinny or aristocratic roles. His claim to fame playing a literal twink as the 17-year-old Elio who falls in love with older American tourist, Oliver, played by Armie Hammer, emphasized this twinkish delicateness and a vulnerability that gave him a reputation as the artsy, indie, misunderstood, "deep" type. It's genuinely one of the most moving performances I've ever seen, and should have been his first Oscar win.

The same year, he starred in Greta Gerwig's Ladybird, where he plays a pretentious pseudo-intellectual indie soft boy at a Catholic high school who successfully convinces Ladybird that he's "different" but ends up just being the familiar male manipulator trying and succeeding to get in her pants. This meta-layer of the indie soft boy archetype made him even more appealing to artsy women. Then he played a drug addicted teenager suffering from the throes of heroin addiction in A Beautiful Boy, and the movingly lovesick Laurie in Gerwig's Little Women. He continued this trend of playing the soft boy, the indie boy, the sad boy, or the misunderstood aristocrat in The French Dispatch, Bones and All, and Dune Part One.

Part of Chalamet's appeal is in being something of a contradiction. He's capable of great polarity, delivering raw, emotionally devastating performances on the one hand, wacky-silly comedic performances on the other, and then randomly hits you with the Lisan Al Gaib of utter terror. He just as often pivoted to roles that are strictly "for the guys," trading on machismo, strength, leadership, grit, authority, and brutality.

Part of Chalamet's appeal is in being something of a contradiction.

Chalamet first proved his adeptness at inhabiting a much more masculine, commanding role in David Michôd's The King. Then, much to the skepticism of long-time Dune fans, he was cast as the messianic leader whose holy war spirals beyond his control, Paul Atreides, in Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of the infamous Frank Herbert sci-fi series, Dune. By the release of Dune Part Two, however, Chalamet had put those doubts to rest, much like a young Heath Ledger shut people up once his vision for the Joker hit cinemas in The Dark Knight. Chalamet isn't just capable of oscillating between gut-churning vulnerability and stoic resolve; he can deliver blood-curdling speeches that make ideological violence feel terrifyingly inevitable.

This versatility is only further demonstrated by his willingness to take on biopics of musical legends like Bob Dylan, complete with singing and all, humorous adaptations of beloved IP like Wonka, for whom existing fans were already partial to existing versions, satires like Don't Look Up, or quirky comedies like The French Dispatch. Chalamet can do romance, comedy, prestige drama, musical biopic, sci-fi, and period epic. He can do indie or blockbuster, deliver on high-stakes IP or obscure original indie projects. He can convince you he's Bob Dylan or an obscure up-and-coming tennis champion.

His preparation is nothing short of elite craftsmanship; the kind more often associated with famously committed actors like Christian Bale or Daniel Day-Lewis, but without the self-serious, always-on method theatrics. Preparing for A Complete Unknown reportedly took five years; had he attempted to remain in character for that entire stretch, it might have crossed from "method acting" to personality disorder.

For that role alone, he learned to play the guitar and harmonica live, how to sing in Dylan's early '60s vocal style, performed all of the film's songs live, studied Dylan's mannerisms, speech cadence, posture, all of it, without getting caught up in a caricature. This level of devotion to film prep has echoed through all of his prestigious film roles. Most recently, his seven-year prep of intensive table tennis training has finally paid off with the 2025 release of Marty Supreme.

Chalamet's Soft Boy Reputation Gets a Shyamalan Twist

With his selection of roles, slender physique, mysterious persona, and the Frenchness of it all (Chalamet is a French dual citizen and is 97% fluent in the language), he was portrayed as this deep, intellectual, poetic type. He had long been connected to women with a bit of an edge or mystique to them, like Lourdes Leon, Lily-Rose Depp, and Taylor Russell. When he began dating Kylie Jenner in 2023, this scandalized the "girl world" by taking a sledgehammer to his sensitive art house public image, rather unfairly, to both Chalamet and Jenner. At the same time, it relied on a mythologizing of Chalamet that was mostly a projection of what women wanted him to be, while reducing Jenner to an idiotic bimbo lacking any depth, humor, or compatibility with the A-list actor.

Accusations that continue to be proven wrong at just about every turn, as the couple continues to stick it out while seeming hopelessly in love and gushingly supportive of one another. Chalamet refers to Jenner as his "partner" who he "couldn't do this without" and while they attempted to lay low on social media for a while, it seems they can't contain their exuberant affection for one another—each haunting each other's Instagram feed with an out-of-focus hand, a reflection, or a subtle like, despite their instinct to stay private. Chalamet shows no sign of keeping it casual, either, boasting in interviews that he intends to marry Jenner and would like to start a family. This is where public preconceptions of Chalamet begin to diverge from who the star really is.

As much as he's developed a soft boy, indie, deep, intellectual reputation due to his aesthetics and film roles, if you look at his digital footprint, interviews, and biggest influences, you'll quickly realize that's all something of a misnomer. A quick YouTube search shows an amusing hodgepodge of jester-like sensibilities and a little kid deeply influenced by Hip Hop, between his amateur rap career as "Lil Timmy Tim," selling modded Xbox 360 controllers on YouTube, and dancing to Crank That by Soulja Boy with his friends, Chalamet's digital footprint is nothing short of iconic.

Timmy Tim is equal parts silly, self-deprecating, confident, and audacious. His 2012 LaGuardia High School Rising Stars talent show performance is a mashup of Nicki Minaj and LMFAO, as well as a self-mythologizing rap about himself. Between all the gyrating, rapping, comedic bits, and braggadocious yelling, it feels refreshingly ridiculous. He jokes about his Eminem-reminiscent disposition with lyrics like "What's wrong with that kid, does he think that he's black?" He oscillates between flirty innuendo, popular hip-hop dances, outfit changes, pink wigs, references to the greats, and a manic energy that some remark is "crackhead energy."

In his bedroom "Hell's Kitchen" rap, he delivers signature comedic bars like, "It's your boy Timmy Tim aka two inches proud," oscillating seamlessly between a comedically fake flamboyant affectation and mogging, "his shit is flaccid, my shit goes hard." You can find other catchy songs like his "Statistics" rap, which he created for a school project and earned only a D+, but remains a golden entry in the early life of Timothée Chalamet. By the time he was 16 years old, he had been knighted by Lil B the BasedGod. All of this is contrasted by the amusing fact that Chalamet is an extremely white, skinny French-coded guy who has often taken up the mantle of aristocratic roles, but is, in reality, deeply immersed in New York Hip Hop culture.

Chalamet's raps are a master class in "braggadocio," a hyperbolic, uber-confident persona common in the hip-hop community, notably in rap music, where artists adopt a grandiose, untouchable armor as a form of artistic expression and self-assertion. The entire ethos of who Timothée Chalamet is and the incredible career he's had seems centered around a deep affinity for Hip Hop, rap, and black culture, growing up on the streets of New York City. He regularly cites Kid Cudi as one of his biggest influences, which explains why he's so comfortable melding intense vulnerability with a true guy's-guy masculinity. People keep trying to find the contradiction or point to an aesthetic rebrand, but the truth is, there isn't one. This is who he has always been.

His reverence for black culture goes way back, growing up a huge fan of not just Cudi but Tyler the Creator, Soulja Boy, Lil B, Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar. He's open about how deeply other artists, actors, and "the greats" across all domains have inspired him. After achieving A-List status and multiple Oscar nominations, he made an unsuspected move. Rather than playing the aloof, detached, serious Hollywood prestigious actor who gives the public no access to his inner world à la DiCaprio, he used his win at the SAG Awards for A Complete Unknown to go full meta, breaking the cardinal actor's rule to pretend you're above it all.

In a polarizing speech, he acknowledged the classiest thing he could do would be to downplay the effort that goes into his roles and the significance of it all to him. Instead, he broke the fourth wall to audaciously state his stake, "I'm really in the pursuit of greatness," he said, before admitting he knows people don't usually talk like this. "I'm as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there, so I'm deeply grateful to that. This doesn't signify that, but it's a little more fuel; it's a little more ammo to keep going." It was jarringly sincere but not universally well-received.

Chalamet's pastiche dude bro aspiration-posting has only increased tenfold in the past year, even comparing himself to Daniel Day-Lewis in terms of commitment. In another, he not-so-subtly boasted that Marty Supreme is probably his best performance and that he's been putting out top-of-the-line performances for the past 7 or 8 years: "This is some top-level shit." Some have been put off by this sudden "braggadocious" persona Chalamet seems to have adopted "out of the blue," but he defends it by claiming this press tour is in keeping with the energy of Marty Supreme, a film about chasing a dream with reckless intensity.

The press tour has leaned fully into spectacle. Blimps. Men with giant orange ping pong ball heads trailing him around. Spoof Zoom "leaks" pitching absurd marketing stunts like painting the Statue of Liberty orange or raining ping pong balls over a city, noting that it might be worth someone losing an arm physically if it causes them to gain an arm intellectually. A surprise remix with UK rapper EsDeeKid (long rumored to secretly be Chalamet) looping "it's Marty Supreme" over cloud-rap-adjacent production that went viral across social media edits. At one press panel, he came out doing the Soulja Boy "Crank That" dance, a callback to his Lil Timmy Tim era that went over many people's heads.

Add to that appearances on virtually every "bro" platform imaginable: Theo Von, Druski, 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, and some began to read it as a deliberate rebrand. He even won "White Boy of the Year" at the Believe That Awards, an honor he doesn't take lightly. He spoke on Carmelo Anthony's podcast about how weird it is to suddenly inherit celebrity and all its responsibilities of being respectful and avoiding being a culture vulture while remaining true to his honest-to-God roots: a kid who grew up in the birthplace of Hip Hop, deeply entrenched and influenced by black culture.

Female fans are accusing him of trying to shed the image that made him famous: the vulnerable, sad boy or heartthrob in feminine movies, in exchange for something more masculine that plays better with film bros. The real quality Chalamet has, which is so polarizing, is a Lynchian earnestness. He radiates total optimism and self-belief. Part of it seems borne of a hip-hop or sports ethos where greatness isn't politely hoped for but declared; where you manifest by becoming your own loudest supporter.

Chalamet is trying to bring that to an industry that downplays ambition and pretends awards don't matter for the sake of performing humility. Actors get on stage and deliver trite, disingenuous speeches about how it's an honor just to be nominated or to work. To act as if ambition is gauche. In the rap game, it's completely normal to name your influences directly, to compare yourself to the greats, and declare that you're coming for the throne. To mythologize your rise as part of the pantheon. Some people get it. They feel a magnetizing force emanating from him that feels contagious. But others don't. That's their loss.

Becoming Marty Supreme

There are many ways to interpret Marty Supreme, but a powerfully pronatalist reading prevails, positing the legacy of the glory of sport or the acclaim of fame as something that pales in comparison to the permanence of fatherhood. To me, it feels like Marty wins in a quieter, less discussed way: he's spared the corrosive excess of fame and legacy is granted its essence on a smaller scale in the form of a child. It feels like the film is a deconstruction of the American myth or the classic Hero's journey by subverting the idea that his fulfillment must be something epic or grand in scale.

The true celebration isn't in defeating Endo, it's in defeating his own ego. He transforms from a boy to a man, from a selfish, immature hustler to a responsible father. From chasing clout and glory to finding great purpose and legacy in family. At the same time, the film doesn't frame Marty as silly or delusional. In a way, his resourcefulness and resilience are truly aspirational, even though they're simultaneously corrosive.

The film celebrates the quiet legacy of domesticity, but only after Marty takes his shot and gives it his all, taking the male, or perhaps distinctly American, drive to try to make something of yourself seriously, with no sense of irony. The film celebrates taking your shot but doesn't settle for the idea that glory comes in only one form. It suggests that, without Marty going on his solo mission, he might never have been able to peacefully accept a quiet legacy in good faith. He has the closure of knowing he gave it his shot; that's what allows him to grow up. The themes of the film feel like echoes of what Chalamet is wrestling with in real life.

The film celebrates taking your shot but doesn't settle for the idea that glory comes in only one form.

At the top of his game, Chalamet's already widely considered the best leading man of his generation. He has openly called it "bleak" when people brag about how being childless gives them more time to work. He speaks about his girlfriend as his "partner," about building a "foundation," and about wanting marriage and children. He's transparent about his desire for greatness and legacy.

He's not the next DiCaprio; he's the inversion. DiCaprio represents aloof detachment, eternal bachelorhood, and prestige Hollywood elitism. Chalamet is outwardly ambitious without irony and embraces domesticity without shame. He has a brand of masculinity that is integrated with the anima—a Hollywood career that contains as many multitudes as the man himself.