In one version of the story, none of this occurs. No Paul Atreides, no Willy Wonka, no Call Me by Your Name. Just a thirteen-year-old Hell’s Kitchen kid who quietly disappeared into New York City’s background after being turned down by the right school. The only reason that version doesn’t exist is because one drama instructor chose to have what he called a “tantrum.”
Harry Shifman had taught at Fiorello H. for almost thirty years at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. He had witnessed thousands of tryouts. Shifman gave Timothée Chalamet the best score he had ever given when he entered. Chalamet was then rejected by the school despite what appeared to have been a minor issue during the interview process, such as arriving late. Shifman was enraged. He went to the principal and asked for a reevaluation. “I found it outrageous that someone so brilliant could fall through the cracks,” he said afterwards. The principal paid attention. Chalamet entered.
It may not seem like much, but that moment is crucial. Timothée Chalamet’s schooling was a maze of winding hallways, unexpected turns, and near-misses rather than a straight line. After attending PS 87 William T. Sherman for elementary school, he transferred to The Computer School for middle school before enrolling in Booker T. Washington Middle School’s academically demanding Delta program, which he reportedly detested. He was an intelligent child raised in a demanding setting with little opportunity for artistic expression. Either quiet resignation or a desperate desire for something else is often the result of that specific combination. It was the latter in Chalamet’s instance.
LaGuardia completely altered his world’s temperature. The school has produced a number of celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Adrien Brody, Nicki Minaj, and Sarah Paulson. It was dubbed the “Fame” school after the 1980 movie. Chalamet threw himself into it, landing leading parts in school productions of Sweet Charity and Cabaret before losing another lead in Hairspray to Ansel Elgort, who wasn’t well-known at the time. Additionally, he was allegedly posting rap videos to YouTube for a statistics class under the moniker Lil Timmy Tim. That detail has an almost charming quality. Even back then, he never saw performance as merely an academic endeavor. The only thing that felt authentic was that.
Chalamet moved into Hartley Hall at Columbia University and declared cultural anthropology as his major after graduating in 2013. It sounds like the start of a typical tale: gifted youngster from New York, esteemed university, bright future. However, he had already finished filming Interstellar by that point, and returning to college life after working with Christopher Nolan was actually quite challenging. For someone whose mind was still half on a movie set, Columbia’s rhythm didn’t leave much space.
Eventually, he moved to NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, a program created especially for students who must create their own academic trajectory. For a while, at least, it was a better fit. However, Chalamet eventually withdrew from that as well, stating that she wanted to avoid accruing student debt and devote all of her attention to acting. Some people might have raised an eyebrow. It doesn’t exactly sound like cautious decision-making to drop out of two reputable universities. However, careful consideration seldom results in the third-youngest nominee for Best Actor in Academy Award history.
In reality, Timothée Chalamet received neither a degree nor a transcript from his schooling. It was a bilingual childhood divided between New York and a small French village two hours from Lyon, summers spent at his grandparents’ house in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a family that valued art as commonplace and essential, and a teacher who would not allow an exceptional student to be rejected by a bureaucratic interview process. He was adequately prepared in the classroom. He worked out the rest on his own.
