Timothee Chalamet wanted to emulate LeBron James, Lionel Messi

Timothee Chalamet

"Call Me By Your Name" star Timothee Chalamet has revealed that before he started acting, he thought he could be an athlete. The 23-year-old actor was speaking at the 30th Palm Springs International Film Festival, where he received the Spotlight Award for his performance in the film "Beautiful Boy".

According to Variety, Chalamet said during his teenage years, he wanted to follow the footsteps of basketball star LeBron James and Argentina's footballer Lionel Messi. "There's a moment when you're growing up where you realize the adults around you, your parents, they're all just people. Everyone is just a messy human, and today that's what inspires me the most in my acting," he said.

"But that realization at first, that we're all vulnerable, is kind of scary and defeating. At first I wanted to be a professional athlete, think LeBron James and Lionel Messi. They inspired me with their invincibility," he added.

The actor said he, however, soon realised that he lacked the "athletic talent" to achieve to what James and Messi have achieved. "I looked in the mirror and I humbly realised I'd never be an athlete for many reasons. Freakishly small frame but more importantly my very glaring lack of athletic talent," he added.

After he went to a performing arts school in New York, Chalamet said, things started to change for him and he started to look up to many great artistes. "Something changed and I felt myself falling in love for the first time in my life. I was getting inspired in a way I had when I'd wanted to become an athlete, but this time the inspiration wasn't to be superhuman, but to be very human indeed," he said.

"The invincible Messis and LeBrons weren't as interesting to me as the artists who were vulnerable for a living " the Heath Ledgers, the Joaquin Phoenixes," he added.

"Beautiful Boy", also featuring Steve Carell, Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan, follows a family's love in the midst of their son's addiction and his attempts at recovery. The film is directed by Felix Van Groeningen and released in the US in October last year.

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