Ellise Shafer “Wonka” director Paul King has been open about what drew him to cast Timothée Chalamet as a young version of the whimsical chocolatier: his YouTube videos from when he was in high school.
Any Chalamet fan knows that several videos exist online of the actor singing and dancing pre-fame, including a rap song devoted to the art of statistics and a passionate talent show performance of Nicki Minaj’s “Roman’s Revenge.” In an interview with Rolling Stone in July, King admitted that watching the videos was all he needed to cast Chalamet.
At the premiere of “Wonka” in London on Tuesday night, Chalamet agreed that the clips “sort of” helped him land the role — but that’s not the whole story.
When asked about the videos by Variety, Chalamet said: “I know, damn… they sort of did, in Paul’s words.” Laughing, he later added, “That wasn’t exclusively what got me the part.
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