Timothée Chalamet Hardest Working Person: Backlash Explained
As you are probably aware, Timothée Chalamet has raised eyebrows over the past year or so for speaking incredibly openly about his talent, work ethic, and ambition.
It all started when he won the 2025 SAG Award for his performance in A Complete Unknown, where Timmy earnestly said that he is “really in the pursuit of greatness.”
“People don’t usually talk like this, but I want to be one of the greats,” he went on. “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 poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero.”
In December, an interview that the star did with Margaret Gardiner was mysteriously scrubbed from the internet after it triggered huge backlash. In the conversation, the star sincerely said that he doesn’t want people to take his “top-of-the-line performances” “for granted,” and was promptly accused of being arrogant.
Praising his own work as an actor, the 30-year-old star said: “This is probably my best performance, you know, and it’s been, like, seven, eight years that I feel like I’ve been handing in really, really committed top-of-the-line performances. And it’s important to say it out loud, because the discipline and the work ethic I’m bringing to these things — I don’t want people to take it for granted. I don’t want to take it for granted. This is really some top-level shit.”
Shortly afterward, Timmy went viral again after he appeared to suggest that he believes he’ll have an Oscar by the summer. For reference, when this interview took place, Timothée had not yet been nominated, although he has been since.
In an interview with ABC, Timothée said of Marty Supreme: “The bigger, more important thing is I want the movie to succeed, and I want everything to win in the film industry.” When pressed on how he personally measures the film’s success, Timothée went on: “This is a real conversation, I’m trying to keep my PR brain on…”
“But the real truth is, with Marty Supreme, I feel confident to the degree that by next summer…” he then hesitated as he stumbled over his words. “I don’t know, man, should I not be saying this? … I feel like… I’m confident I know what it’s gonna be by next summer.”
While Timothée didn’t explicitly say that he believes he’ll win the Oscar, many interpreted his comments to be referencing this — highlighting the fact that he said he wants the movie to “win in the film industry.” And this self-assuredness was considered pretty off-putting, with a now-deleted viral tweet reading: “he’s a great actor who i’m sure will win an oscar one day and will deserve it but currently he’s displaying levels of delulu we’ve never seen before and it’s embarrassing to watch.”
And discourse surrounding Timothée has erupted once again after he insisted that he has a “unique talent” and works harder than anybody else he knows in a new interview with France Inter.
It’s worth noting that this interview took place in French, and Timothée’s quotes have been translated. Speaking to the publication, he says in the video: “I knew — I know it’s not normal to talk about yourself like this — but I knew I had a pretty unique talent. And I know that I work, honestly… I work harder than almost everyone I know.”
“That makes me laugh, because we all buy into this Hollywood dream that’s sold to actors and actresses, like: ‘Yeah, it’s chill, it’s Los Angeles, it’s nice cars,’ stuff like that,” he went on. “That’s the dream that’s been around for a hundred years, before me, you know? For all of us. But I really have an athlete’s mindset in how I work. And people can make fun of it, they can laugh, but I don’t care. I’m the one doing it. And it works.”
Needless to say, these comments have not landed well, with one person writing on a Reddit forum: “The cleaner at his mansion who scrubs shit from his toilet works harder than him flying first class to award shows then to yachts most of the year.”
“This is what gets me about wealthy people,” another added. “Absolutely no self reflection on their privilege or the literal army of much lower wage workers (cleaners, drivers, cooks, nannies, stylists, makeup artists, PR people, assistants etc.) propping up this ‘hard work.’”
“people call female artists ‘narcissists’ for way less. i’m tired,” one more wrote, to which somebody else replied: “I can’t imagine any female celebrity talking like this without getting the most deranged backlash.”
And, reacting to Timmy’s comment that he is one of the hardest-working people he knows, one more quipped: “He should meet more people.”
You can watch the full clip here, but remember, it is in French! What do you make of Timmy’s comments? Let me know down below.