Jennifer Lawrence Confirms What We Suspected All Along About Timothée Chalamet's On-Set Behavior
Netflix's dark comedy "Don't Look Up" is one of those movies where you can tell it was a whole lot of fun for the cast to shoot. With so many different actors and Hollywood minds on one set — including, but not limited to, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, and legendary comedic director Adam McKay — there was likely never a dull moment between them.
Still, out out of everyone who appears in "Don't Look Up," the one person who seemed to surprise the cast the most with his off-screen behavior was someone you might not immediately guess, and that's Timothée Chalamet. The young star's "Don't Look Up" role in itself is already somewhat surprising, to say the least. You might be used to seeing him as the heroic Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," or a cool, comparatively serious character in historic dramas like "The King" and "Little Women." Yet, here he appears as Yule, a seemingly detached, shoplifting slacker, who turns out to be a deep thinker with a surprising affinity for religion.
Of course, it must be noted that despite his general propensity toward more serious roles, there's far more to Chalamet than that. Speaking in a recent interview with DiCaprio, which was posted on Instagram, Jennifer Lawrence described how the "Little Women" actor showed a completely different side to him than what people would expect from someone who's known for more dramatic roles — though it might not be all that surprising for people who have followed the actor's career. Let's see what Jennifer Lawrence confirmed about what we suspected all along about Timothée Chalamet's on-set behavior.
Chalamet served as the comedic relief
According to Jennifer Lawrence, Timothée Chalamet was constantly cracking people up on set while filming scenes with them, especially her and Leonardo DiCaprio. "Timothée gave us all so much comedic relief," Lawrence explained. "He was improving and was just killing Leo." Lawrence's character Kate in "Don't Look Up" meets Chalamet's Yule inside a supermarket where she works, and later forms a bond with him. The two spend the majority of Chalamet's screen time together, with DiCaprio eventually joining them.
"I had a scene [where] I started on the outside and I had to walk back in the room, so I had to wait until they called cut, but I just saw Leo's face — he wasn't on camera — but his face was just bright red, he like couldn't breathe," Lawrence recalled. "He was holding in a laugh and I had to wait until cut to be like, 'What [Chalamet] say?'" Laughing, DiCaprio added, "He would say the most random stuff, it was incredible."
The fact that Chalamet was able to get one over DiCaprio like that is a pretty impressive achievement, considering that DiCaprio himself is a known on-set joker. In fact, as a direct result of his various pranks, he and Claire Danes couldn't stand each other in real life despite playing lovers in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet."
Chalamet can be a very funny guy
The people who only know Timothée Chalamet from his dramatic roles might be surprised by the fact that he's hilarious enough for Jennifer Lawrence to go out of her way to specifically mention it. However, the fans who have followed Chalamet's career are no doubt aware that the kind of deadpan comedy he unleashed upon his co-stars is well within the actor's skillset. After all, he plays the revolutionary youth Zeffirelli in Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch," and you don't tend to get cast in a Wes Anderson movie without knowing how to deliver on the offbeat humor front. It's also highly unlikely that anyone would get cast as Willy Wonka without plenty of kooky comedic sensibility at their disposal — and as Chalamet-heads of all ages no doubt know, the actor is indeed the latest guy to portray the eccentric candymaker in the upcoming "Wonka."
Per GQ, Chalamet's friends, filmmaker and actor Greta Gerwig, has confirmed that his offbeat sense of humor extends beyond professional environment, too. "We can get on the phone and talk for an hour or more without even realizing it, just skipping from subject to subject, making jokes, me feeling old and happy and him being funny and anxious and delightfully all over the place," Gerwig described talking with Chalamet. That combination of random and funny sounds a lot like the Chalamet experience his "Don't Look Up" co-stars received, doesn't it?