Watch Timothée Chalamet visit apartment that made him ‘scared of acting’

Timothée Chalamet grew up around artists — and witnessing their lifestyles actually dissuaded him from pursuing acting.

The Wonka star recently revisited the Manhattan apartment complex where he grew up surrounded by actors and other artists during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. “This building truthfully made me scared of acting,” Chalamet said, “because it’s a tough lifestyle, and a lot of people aren’t doing fantastically.”

Cooper responded, “You would think growing up here, it would encourage you to be an actor.”

Chalamet said that the opposite was true. “No, it actually terrified me of becoming an actor.”

The Dune leading man also said his father discouraged him from performing too much as a child. “My dad, I think he very, very, very correctly, rightfully, was wary [when I was] growing up,” he said. “It’s no place for a child, it really isn’t. Cameras, people going, ‘Hey, do the thing where we recognize you as cute in your own head.’ I think my dad was more just like, ‘Be normal.'”

Chalamet reflected on attending Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York, where he honed his thespian skills. “It’s a school that champions the arts, so there I doubled down,” he said. “I was not a distracted kid as a teenager, like maybe to a fault. You know, I wasn’t partying — I don’t say that to come off as straight-laced. To a fault, I was very focused and driven.”

Later in the interview, Chalamet looked back on his mental and emotional state when he decided to drop out of college to focus on acting full-time. “I was struggling,” he said. “I was struggling with identity, I was struggling with your sense of self-respect, your sense of drive or where you want to be pales in comparison to where you are.”

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While discussing his Oscar-nominated work in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Chalamet said he was unbothered by the fact that he hasn’t met the real “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer yet. “He doesn’t seem like he wants to be bothered by — not me, but by everyone the last 60, 70 years,” the actor said of the singer.

Cooper asked Chalamet what he’d say to Dylan if they ever crossed paths. “I would say thank you, I would just say thank you,” he said, before backtracking. “You know what? That’s bulls—, I’m going to take that back. I wouldn’t.”

Instead, Chalamet said that he’d try to give Dylan a break from the usual flattery that he receives from fans. “I would honestly just play it super-cool, because I feel like he’s probably used to so much hyperbole and praise. Maybe I would try to out-Bob him,” he said. “[I would] not bring anything up around him about the movie. Maybe just talk about the weather and what his favorite sandwich is.”

Watch Chalamet’s full 60 Minutes interview above.