In Wonkaby director Paul King (Paddington) sings and dances Timothée Chalamet, a first for the 27-year-old, who stars alongside Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawkins and Olivia Colman.
Wonka is what Americans call an origin story, meaning the feature film focuses on the youth of Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet). The events therefore predate those of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, Roald Dahl's children's novel, which was brought to the screen twice, the first in 1971 in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” with Gene Wilder in the title role, and the second in 2005 in “Charlie and the chocolate factory”. the chocolate factory where Johnny Depp plays the famous character.
In Wonka, the apprentice chocolatier moves to London with the aim of opening his own shop and continuing the work of his late mother (Sally Hawkins), but he encounters the members of an all-powerful cartel that controls the sale of sweets. Wonka is a musical comedy and therefore includes seven songs and dance numbers with which director Paul King wants to recall the classics with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly.
Timothée Chalamet in the film “Wonka”, in cinemas from December 15, 2023. Photo provided by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
“I remember reading the script and immediately thinking that one of the defining aspects of the character is his unwavering drive and ambition,” Timothée Chalamet told USA Today. He is the exact opposite of the crazy-eyed Willy Wonka we all know. How would this character have started his life and how would he have become such a somewhat broken child?
A dazzling career
Discovered in the television series Homeland, Timothée Chalamet – yes, his father is French, but he grew up in the United States, his mother was American. And his sister Pauline, also an actress and host of the series “The Sex Lives of College Girls” on HBO, became a star in 2017 thanks to “Call Me By Your Name”, in which he plays the 17-year-old teenager Elio, who fell in love with Oliver in love, played by Armie Hammer.
But acting is not his only talent. In 2017, after the success of Call Me By Your Name, a video of Timothée Chalamet was uploaded to YouTube in which we see him, a high school student, singing rap under his fake stage name Little Timmy Tim. And thanks to these archives, Paul King learned that he could sing!
“I always felt that way [la danse et le chant] were muscles I hadn't developed. I've been interested in theater musicals all my life, and on the big screen it's completely different,” explained Timothée Chalamet.
“It was a completely new challenge for me, a completely unusual world in which you can have fun,” said Timothée Chalamet in an interview with journalists on the Wonka red carpet in London.
But it's also an opportunity for him to give up for a while the serious dramas – including Denis Villeneuve's Dune, the second part of which will be in cinemas next March – that made him famous. “It was a great pleasure to work on a film that appeals to a young, non-cynical audience. In a time and climate of intense political rhetoric, where bad news is constant, I hope this film does well.”
And although the actor stated that he owed his performance in “Wonka” to his grandmother, who died during filming, “this is not a film about the dark emotions of life. It’s a celebration of being apart, a celebration of accepting the strangest parts of ourselves, the parts that don’t quite fit in.”
Wonka hits theaters across the province on December 15th.