After finishing Dune, Timothée Chalamet received life-changing advice from one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Tom Cruise.
What Was The Advice Tom Cruise Shared With Timothée Chalamet?
While speaking with GQ, Chalamet shared how Cruise recommended a group of experts to improve his stunt training, from a motorcycle coach to a helicopter coach.
“After I met Tom Cruise, right after finishing the first Dune, he sent me the most wonderfully inspiring email,” Chalamet said. “He basically said, in Old Hollywood, you would be getting dance training and fight training, and nobody is going to hold you to that standard today. So it’s up to you. The email was really like a war cry.”
Learning from Cruise, who is still at the top of his game more than four decades into his career, is a top priority for Chalamet. While filming Dune: Part Two, Chalamet rented out a movie theater in Budapest and took the entire cast and crew to watch Top Gun: Maverick. Chalamet told GQ that he saw the Maverick eight times.
“Top Gun was just hugely inspiring to me last summer when we were making Dune,” Chalamet said. “Some of the crew were kind of scoffing at going, but I just thought it was one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen.”
Chalamet took Cruise’s advice about stunt work to heart, increasing his training for Dune: Part Two. Director Denis Villeneuve noticed the improvements in Chalamet’s preparation from the first film and the sequel.
“I felt that he was much more trained than in Part One, and ready for the fighting sequences,” Villeneuve said. “I was impressed by his level of discipline for Part Two. You know, when you are the lead on a movie, there’s a presence, the way you approach your work and your discipline will necessarily have a ripple effect on the rest of the crew. He was the first one on set, always ready. And I was super pleased and impressed with how Timothée really embraced that discipline and became, for me, a real leading actor on this film.”
Originally scheduled for a November 3 release, Dune: Part Two now arrives in theaters on March 15, 2024 following the Hollywood labor strikes. Chalamet will next be seen in Wonka, the musical fantasy film about the early days of Willy Wonka. The film heads to theaters on December 15, 2023.
