Timothée Chalamet Bombed His Audition For This Hit Horror Series

Timothée Chalamet has been on a historic run of late. The actor recently fronted a string of hit films that have propelled him to true movie star status, to the point that people will seemingly buy tickets to a film simply because it has the Chalamet factor. Sure, not everything the young actor has done has been successful. Some of the worst Chalamet movies include 2015's "Love the Coopers" and 2019's "A Rainy Day in New York," the latter arriving two years after Chalamet's breakthrough performance in the 2017 love story worth falling head over heels for, "Call Me By Your Name." But the actor's recent run of films have all performed extremely well.

After helping "Dune: Part Two" cross box office milestones with his performance as Paul Atreides, Chalamet played Bob Dylan in the Oscar-nominated biopic "A Complete Unknown," which garnered critical praise and saw the actor take on the challenging task of playing one of the 20th century's biggest musical icons. Add in his lead performance in 2023's "Wonka," which made $634 million on a $125 million budget, and you've got a truly star-making run on your hands.

But on the TV side, Chalamet has yet to front a bonafide hit. He did have a recurring role as Finn Walden in Showtime's "Homeland," but that's been his biggest TV role to date, and that was back in 2012; he has yet to actually star in anything on the small screen. But it seems things were close to working out a lot differently in that regard — that is, until the actor bombed his audition for what would become a hit horror series.

In 2014's "Interstellar," Chalamet played a 15-year-old version of Tom Cooper, son of Matthew McConaughey's Joseph Cooper. At the time, the young actor was sure the film would transform his life, yet what remains Chalamet's favorite movie did absolutely nothing for his career. Instead, he would have to wait until 2017's "Call Me By Your Name" to land his breakthrough role and receive the recognition he sought. Had he not completely flubbed his audition for an A&E horror series prior to that, however, he might well have come to prominence much earlier.

The year before "Intersellar," A&E debuted "Bates Motel," a horror drama series inspired by Robert Bloch's "Psycho" novel from 1959. Conceived as a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 adaptation of "Psycho," the show focused on Norman Bates (played by British actor Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) in the years prior to the events of the novel and film. Instead of being set in a fictional California town, like the film, the events of the series took place in White Pine Bay, Oregon and, just to make things even more confusing, the show was set in the modern day, despite being a prequel. With a needlessly perplexing setup like that, you might expect it to have done quite poorly, but it actually lasted for five seasons and proved quite popular throughout its run, which ended in 2017.

The series also featured eventual "House of the Dragon" actress Olivia Cooke, who found that filming "Bates Motel" took quite a mental toll. Whether the same would have been true for Timothée Chalamet will, however, forever remain a mystery, as the actor lost the lead role due to him completely missing the point of his audition.

In a Backstage interview, Timothée Chalamet was asked about his worst audition story, and the actor highlighted his attempt at landing the lead role of Norman Bates in "Bates Motel," explaining how he confused the source material for something else entirely:

"I did it when I was 14 or 15, and I was told this was a young 'Psycho.' And I went to Netflix, and the first thing that came up for 'Psycho' was 'American Psycho,' which is obviously very specific tonally and performance-wise. So there's an audition for "Bates Motel" somewhere that's a Patrick Bateman impression that's way off tonally."

While Patrick Bateman remains one of the most prominent fictional psychopaths in film history, he's not quite the same kind of "Psycho" as Norman Bates. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see Chalamet doing his best Patrick Bateman impression — especially since "American Psycho" is getting a remake with the perfect director. Perhaps Chalamet might even have been a good fit for Bateman in the new movie had his "Dune: Part Two" co-star Austin Butler not already been cast.

Interestingly enough, Freddie Highmore, who eventually landed the lead role in "Bates Motel," starred as Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" adaptation back in 2005. Chalamet, meanwhile, played the titular role in "Wonka," portraying a younger version of the eccentric chocolatier for the 2023 movie in much the same way as Highmore played a young Norman Bates in his A&E series.