Timothée Chalamet is one of the greats.*
On Friday morning, Chalamet, 29, scored his first Grammy nomination in the category best compilation soundtrack for visual media, which comes from Chalamet’s portrayal of Bob Dylan in last year’s A Complete Unknown. He is nominated alongside F1 The Album, KPop Demon Hunters, Sinners and Wicked. However, all his fellow nominees are listed under “various artists,” making Chalamet the only one to receive a nod by name.
To embody the Like a Rolling Stone singer, the actor trained extensively, including five years of preparation, to learn to sing as well as play guitar and harmonica, and to work with dialect and movement coaches to make his performance feel authentic.
And his work earned him his second Oscar nomination for best actor in addition to nominations at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice Awards and SAG Awards, winning in the final ceremony.
*At the SAG Awards earlier this year, the actor gave a headline-making speech about how he was in pursuit of greatness while accepting a win for best actor in A Complete Unknown. “I can downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me. And I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats,” he said. “I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there.”
While he won the SAG Award, he did not win the Oscar, as it went to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist. He was previously nominated for a best actor Oscar for Call Me by Your Name in 2018. However, Chalamet recently opened up to Vogue about being disappointed to have lost the statue for his Bob Dylan turn.
“If there’s five people at an awards show, and four people go home losing, you don’t think those four people are at the restaurant like, ‘Damn, we didn’t win?’” Chalamet told the publication. “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, ‘Fuck!’ People can call me a try-hard, and they can say whatever the fuck. But I’m the one actually doing it here.”
As 2026 approaches, Chalamet is already receiving Oscar buzz for his upcoming role as a ping-pong player in Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. Chalamet also isn’t the only high-profile actor who is not the typical kind of musician to be nominated for a Grammy as 12-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper (but three times for acting) has won three Grammy Awards for his music-leading films A Star Is Born and Maestro, in which he also thoroughly trained to pull of his performances, including six years of prep to play the iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein.
While Cooper has also not yet won an Oscar, and has instead earned quite a few prizes on music’s biggest night, the odds are looking promising for Chalamet.
