Just how Jewish is Timothée Chalamet?

Timothée Chalamet is, at the moment at least, inescapable. From his pop up appearances on American sports shows and bro podcasts, to the lookalike contest that spawned a thousand knockoffs, including a Yemeni Tim-Houthi Chalamet, New York’s favourite son is everywhere. But just how Jewish is he?

Born in 1995 in New York City, Timothée Chalamet made Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch list in 2017 with Call Me by Your Name and has continued to soar ever since.

His first TV role was as a teenager in thriller Homeland in 2012. Chalamet has since starred in Dune and its sequel, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Little Women, Wonka, Don’t Look Up, Beautiful Boy and Call Me By Your Name, picking up a best actor Oscar nomination for the latter and nods from the Golden Globe and BAFTA Film awards along the way.

Any Jewish roles to date?

Yes, and the Oscar nominee has not one but two Jewish roles coming up in 2025. His biggest one is set to be the much-anticipated biopic of Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown, out in UK cinemas on January 17. Taking viewers from the unknown folk singer-songwriter’s arrival in New York in the early 1960s aged 19, to changing the musical landscape, the James Mangold-directed film focuses on Dylan’s controversial decision to “go electric”.

For five years, Chalamet prepared for his role, learning guitar from scratch and performing the songs we see in the film himself. He had initially pre-recorded the tracks, but has said in interview: “When it came time to do it, it just was better live and it felt more lived in and more authentic. It caused a bit of a panic on set, but it was worth it. And Edward Norton was sort of like the devil in my ear, saying, ‘Do it live. You sound better live.'”

He has already had a thumbs up from the world’s greatest songwriter, Bob Dylan himself, who posted on X that Chalamet is “a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me”.

After Dylan, he is playing the late table tennis legend Marty Reisman in Marty Supreme, on which he is also a producer.

Judaism was a central theme in his 2017 breakout role. In Call Me By Your Name, a film based on the novel by Jewish author André Aciman, he played Elio, one of two gay Jewish lovers. In the film, Elio says, “My mother says we are Jews of discretion.”And when he later emerges from water with a Star of David around his neck, it’s a symbol of Elio embracing his Jewish identity.

Chalamet also starred in Felix van Groeningen’s poignant family drama Beautiful Boy, which was based on two memoirs – one written by Jewish American writer David Sheff and the other by his son Nic. 

Family

Chalamet is Jewish on his maternal side. His mother, Nicole Flender, is a Jewish, third-generation New Yorker of half-Russian and half-Austrian descent. She has a degree in French from Yale University and is a former Broadway dancer, French and dance teacher, and real estate agent.

His father, Marc Chalamet, is French and from a Protestant background, and is an editor for UNICEF and a former New York correspondent for Le Parisien. His older sister Pauline is also an actress.

What Jewish things does he say or do?

He identifies as Jewish. On Instagram, his mother, Nicole Flender has posted pictures of young Timothée and the family celebrating Chanukah and Pesach. There are sweet pictures of the star finding the afikomen, and of him lighting the Chanukah candles, for example.

While pictures can be found of Chalamet attending a bar mitzvah in 2008, we have yet to unearth any information on his own simcha.

Chalamet has talked about themes of Judaism in his film work. In an interview about Call Me By Your Name, he discussed the significance of his character’s Jewishness.

“It wasn’t something I could verbalise or understand in a conscious domain, but rather, there’s something inexplicable about [Jewishness] that is a driving force in the film,” he told Film School Rejects. “There’s something tangible in watching it and doing it.”

In summer 2023, he was papped alongside fellow Jewish actor Adam Sandler playing street basketball in New York with members of the public. 

During the premiere of his film The King, which took place on Rosh Hashanah, he handed out bagels on the red carpet.

He is currently dating Kylie Jenner (who posted in support of Israel after the Hamas attack last October). Before this, he was reportedly spotted in search of a Jewish date on a members-only dating app The Lox Club that bills itself “for Jews with ridiculously high standards”.

On November 11 last year, Chalamet made an anti-Hamas joke on Saturday Night Live. In the sketch with American comedy group Please Don't Destroy, he played a suicidal musician in a band.

“Come on, man, there must be someone or something you care about,” one of the comedians said to Chalamet’s character.

“Yeah, I guess. It's my music,” the star replied. “I make music. I'm too much of a coward to show anyone.”

The comic trio offered to share his music online, until Chalamet revealed his band name was Hamas.

The skit was widely criticised.