How Timothée Chalamet Felt About Losing The Best Actor Oscar

Timothée Chalamet has earned his place as a movie star in an age when such a thing has supposedly disappeared altogether. Thus far, however, an Academy award has eluded the young actor, who's been surprisingly candid about his desire to finally claim victory at the Oscars having just missed out on a Best Actor win twice.

Chalamet has earned two Best Actor nominations in his career, one for the celebrated 2018 story of first love "Call Me by Your Name" and the other for the safe but enjoyable Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," the latter of which won him a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. Now, with his latest project, "Marty Supreme," prompting awards buzz, he's surely hoping this will be his time to finally win an Oscar, and he's not shy about his desire to do so.

In a 2025 Vogue interview, the actor spoke about losing the Oscar for "A Complete Unknown" a week after winning the SAG award. "If there's five people at an awards show, and four people go home losing," he said, "you don't think those four people are at the restaurant like, 'Damn, we didn't win'? I've been around some deeply generous, no-ego actors, and maybe some of them are going, 'That was fun.' But I know for a fact a lot of them are going, 'F***!'"

Evidently, the "Marty Supreme" star is indifferent to how he's perceived. Following a powerful speech at the SAG awards, in which he spoke about pursuing greatness, the actor is doubling down on his unapologetic honesty. "People can call me a try-hard," he continued, "and they can say whatever the f***. But I'm the one actually doing it here." Well, he hasn't quite done it yet, but it's not like time is running out.

One of two movies to arrive in the wake of the Safdie brothers' post-"Uncut Gems" split, Josh Safdie's "Marty Supreme" is a sports drama in which Timothée Chalamet plays the titular table tennis star who pushes himself to extreme lengths in order to claim victory — an appropriate tale for a man similarly determined to become one of the great actors of his generation and finally win an Academy Award. But even if Chalamet fails to claim a statue in 2026, it won't be his last chance.

In 2025, Adrien Brody took home his second Oscar for playing architect László Tóth in "The Brutalist," a win that was mostly viewed as well-deserved. But many people, including /Film's Nina Starner, felt that Chalamet should have won the Best Actor Oscar for "A Complete Unknown," arguing that the young star disappeared into the role of Bob Dylan and only lost because of a long-standing Academy tradition that only rewards male actors relatively late in their career.

Whatever the case, two Best Actor nominations and a likely third in the near future isn't bad for a 29-year-old, who has plenty of time to finally win over the Academy. If it doesn't happen with "Marty Supreme" it's not as if Chalamet will run out of opportunities. Still, there's something admirable about the guy's ambition, which whether he wins his coveted award or not, should ensure the kid who made his acting debut in a forgotten "Law & Order" episode sticks around for decades to come.