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Before Dune, Denis Villeneuve Turned Down Timothée Chalamet For A Film That Made $122 Million At The Box Office

Highlights

  • Even major stars like Leonardo DiCaprio face competition and rejection for roles in Hollywood.
  • Timothée Chalamet missed opportunities with past projects, including losing out on roles to Tom Holland.
  • Director Denis Villeneuve staked the success of Dune on Chalamet’s casting, showing great confidence in the young actor.

Hollywood is a tough place to thrive, even before the biggest names around. Premiere roles are finite, and the competition is fierce. Because of this, major stars lose out on major roles. Even Leonardo DiCaprio has missed out on some big projects.

Timothée Chalamet is one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars, and while he is currently king of the box office, there was a point in time when he was losing roles. In fact, he once lost out on a role in a project led by none other than Denis Villenueve.

Let’s take a look at Chalamet losing out on an earlier Villenueve film, and how the filmmaker kept him in mind as he was laying the groundwork for his colossal Dune franchise.

Denis Villeneuve Turned Down Timothée Chalamet For A Role In Prisoners Years Before He Was Cast In Dune

It’s hard for some younger movie fans to remember, but there was a point in time when Timothee Chalamet was an up-and-coming performer looking to find pictures to help his career reach another level. During that period, Chalamet was gunning for a role in Prisoners, a Denis Villeneuve film that is quite underrated.

Though Chalamet had big dreams for the role, ultimately, Villeneuve would turn him away. Interestingly, in a joint interview, Chalamet had to remind the filmmaker that their encounter for Prisoners was the first time they had met.

“When they met to discuss [‘Dune’], Villeneuve told Timothée how happy he was to finally meet the young actor. And Timothée had to remind him that they’d met before, when Timothée read for Villeneuve’s ‘Prisoners.’ ‘Of course!,’ Villeneuve remembered,” GQ penned in their joint interview.

“He did a great audition, but he didn’t physically fit the part. He was probably swearing at me because I didn’t take him,” the filmmaker said.

Interestingly, Ryan Goslin was also turned down for a role in that film, but both actors would go on to work with Denis in future projects, showing that a missed opportunity isn’t always the end of the road.

Circling back to Chalamet, Prisoners wasn’t the only major project that he lost out on. He was famously in the running for Spider-Man: Homecoming, before losing out to Tom Holland.

“I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic,” Chalamet said. “I called my agent, [UTA’s] Brian Swardstrom, and I said, ‘Brian, I thought about this a lot and I have to go back and knock on that door and read again,’ and he told me the story of Sean Young and how in an attempt to become Catwoman had scared everyone away when she showed up at the studio gates in costume,” Chalamet said about auditioning for Spider-Man.

As far as Chalamet getting Dune is concerned, well, let’s just say that Denis knew exactly what he was doing by casting him in the role. Not only that, but the filmmaker didn’t exactly have a Plan B if Chalamet wasn’t on board.

Villeneuve Only Had Chalamet In Mind For Dune, And Did Not Have A Plan B

According to director, Denis Villeneuve, getting Timothée Chalamet for the role of Paul Atreides was the biggest obstacle that he faced in getting Dune off the ground.

“We said, ‘It’s Timothée.’ We didn’t have a Plan B. Honestly, if he had said no, I don’t know what I would have done. There would be no Dune, maybe,” the director said.

Yes, this now-massive blockbuster franchise essentially hinged on getting Timothee Chalamet in the role of Paul Atreides. While it’s obvious that they would have likely found another star, it is interesting to see just how honed in Villeneuve was on Chalamet, someone who was wrong for the role in Prisoners all those years ago.

Fortunately, Chalamet was the right man for the job, and Villenueve has noted how the actor handled things behind the scenes.

“It didn’t show when he was on set, but I think for him the big thing was to learn how to create his own bubble on set. So that he would not have to try to be the friend of everyone. When you’re on a smaller set, when there’s 25 people, you can be friendly with 25 people. When there’s 800 people around, you cannot be friends with 800 people. It’s too much. So how to save your energy, how to focus, how to give himself permission to be in his bubble and make sure that his bubble is respected,” the filmmaker said.

Dune Part 2 is the talk of the entertainment world right now, and for good reason. Chalamet getting his chance to work with Villeneuve and running with it is precisely why the franchise has become what it is today.

Source: NewsFinale

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