Timothée Chalamet Was Told to ‘Put on Weight,’ He Didn’t ‘Have the Right Body’ for Movies LikeMaze Runner,Divergent

Mar. 15, 2025

Timothee Chalamet.Photo:Neil Mockford/FilmMagic

Neil Mockford/FilmMagic

Timothée Chalametwas told to gain weight early on in his career.

During aninterviewwith Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, published Nov. 11, the 28-year-old actor opened up about his struggle landing movie roles when his career began, recalling the moment an agent even told him that he didn’t have the body type for it.

“If I auditioned forThe Maze RunnerorDivergent, things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,'” he shared.

“I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You got to put on weight,’ basically — not aggressively, but you know,” he added.

Chalamet told Lowe that this experience helped him relate to and connect withBob Dylan. He’s portraying Dylan the “End of the Line” singer in the upcoming biopicA Complete Unknown.

“I can relate to some of these things he went through,” he said. “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.”

Timothee Chalamet (left); Bob Dylan.Jeff Spicer/Getty; Roy Cummings/THA/Shutterstock

Jeff Spicer/Getty; Roy Cummings/THA/Shutterstock

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“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," he continued.

source: people.com