Timothée Chalamet shocked the world earlier this year when he defied convention during his acceptance speech at the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards. Specifically, Chalamet namechecked three all-time great actors who inspired him to “want to be up there”, as he put it: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis. There is a lot that an actor could learn from those three legends, and there are certain characters played by Day-Lewis and Brando in which Chalamet could base his next performances.

Timothée Chalamet’s career has seen him achieve plenty as an actor, from his compelling breakout role in Call Me By Your Name, to fronting Denis Villeneuve’s masterful Dune movies. But there are specific performances by his male acting heroes that he’s yet to match, as he aims for the top of his profession. Not every Brando or Day-Lewis part would suit Timothée Chalamet. It’s hard to envision him conveying the quiet menace of The Godfather’s Vito Corleone, or Daniel Plainview’s vindictive greed in There Will Be Blood. Still, these acting greats have various other roles for him to aspire to.

7

The Age of Innocence

Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer

If Timothée Chalamet’s speech at the 2025 SAG Awards is anything to go by, he’ll already have studied Daniel Day-Lewis’ ostensibly understated performance in 1993 romance The Age of Innocence. Day-Lewis portrays the movie’s central protagonist, Newland Archer, with a level of restraint that’s highly unusual for director Martin Scorsese’s work, yet manages to furnish his performance with profound emotional depth through the subtlest changes in vocal delivery and facial expression.

The actor turns Archer’s unresolved feelings for Michelle Pfeiffer’s Ellen Olenska from the frivolous pᴀssion of a WASP gentleman into a genuinely agonizing ordeal that’s heartbreaking to endure with him onscreen. Day-Lewis was just a few years older than Chalamet is now when he played this role, and it’s the perfect place to start for his acting inspiration.

6

The Men

Marlon Brando as Ken Wilocek

Far from Day-Lewis’ subtle turn in The Age of Innocence, Marlon Brando’s first screen role is a masterpiece of simmering physicality. Brando’s cinematic debut as Ken Wilocek in The Men is equally heartbreaking, however, precisely because the scarcely-contained anger of his character is necessarily restrained in physical terms by his use of a wheelchair. Wilocek is newly paraplegic following an injury in combat during the Second World War, and his need for round-the-clock care takes its toll on his marriage.

Brando gives a tour-de-force performance as one of his most intimidating characters, bristling with the resentful feelings of a young man suddenly robbed of the use of his legs by the horrors of war. He’s superbly supported by Teresa Wright in the role of Wilocek’s wife, Ellen, but what Brando himself demonstrates was a whole new kind of acting for Hollywood in 1950. If Timothée Chalamet aspires to performances like this one, he should start by seeking inspiration right here, at the very beginning of Marlon Brando’s movie career.

5

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Daniel Day-Lewis as Tomas

After his breakout performance in the career-defining British romance movie My Beautiful Laundrette, Daniel Day-Lewis cemented his status as one of the most exciting young actors of his generation with his lead role in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Milan Kundera’s seminal novel casts Day-Lewis as an enigmatic heartthrob, with the actor’s spellbinding screen presence one of the underrated film’s most appealing elements.

The way Daniel Day-Lewis manages to hold a gaze that says so much more to his co-star Juliette Binoche than words ever could make his portrayal of Czech protagonist Tomas impossible to look away from. Again, this performance is a masterpiece in method, as Day-Lewis’ outwardly minimal expressions belie the realism with which he inhabits his character.

4

The Young Lions

Marlon Brando as Christian Diestl

In Christian Diestl, The Young Lions’ German protagonist, Marlon Brando found an unlikely character through whom he could elevate his craft. Before the movie’s release in 1958, Brando’s career had been defined by three kinds of movie roles. He’d played raging balls of testosterone like Stanley Kowalski, Ken Wilocek, and Terry Malloy, roles that relied on his theatrical training, such as Mark Antony and Emiliano Zapata, and more comedic or musical male leads in which he got by on sheer charisma. Portraying Diestl was a turning point in his early career.

Playing the young Nazi soldier morally conflicted by the action of the army he was part of taught Brando that acting could be about what he didn’t show, as well as what he did. Diestl’s key moments in the movie rest on small margins of movement and timing, which demonstrate the conflict going on behind Brando’s expressionless face. Timothée Chalamet hasn’t yet had many opportunities in his career to apply this type of less-is-more approach, but as his career progresses he should aspire to acting along these lines.

3

The Last of the Mohicans

Daniel Day-Lewis as Nathaniel “Hawkeye” Poe

By contrast, Daniel Day-Lewis’ character in the Western The Last of the Mohicans is the kind of role in which Chalamet should feel more at home, following his action-heavy performances in the three Dune movies. The English actor displays the kind of swashbuckling physicality that’s rarely ᴀssociated with him as an actor in his portrayal of Hawkeye, but he also lends his role the kind of gravitas that it deserves.

Although The Last of the Mohicans suffers somewhat from its near-indifference to history and a schmaltzy, pipe-heavy musical score, Day-Lewis’ earnest dedication to his part goes some way to making up for its shortcomings. For his next action role, Chalamet may want to consider a movie that similarly stakes a claim for the definitive rendering of a historical event or phenomenon. As Leonardo DiCaprio has since demonstrated with The Revenant, roles of this ilk tend to do well at the Oscars, too.

2

On the Waterfront

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy

Terry Malloy is the character that finally won Marlon Brando his first Oscar after four consecutive nominations, earning him the Academy recognition his breathtaking rise to the top of Hollywood had warranted. Malloy was by far Brando’s most nuanced performance to that point, showcasing the actor’s full emotional range between its moments of tender romance, wistful remorse, disdainful insolence, and burning fury.

If there can be one criticism of Timothée Chalamet’s performance as Bob Dylan, it’s that for the overwhelming majority of the movie it stays on the same note. Chalamet is clearly seeking to reflect how тιԍнтly the real Dylan guarded his feelings during the years portrayed in A Complete Unknown, but it would have been illuminating nonetheless to see other sides to the character’s emotions. Brando’s performance as Terry Malloy is a masterclass of acting at the right emotional temperature for any given scene while retaining coherence and consistency in characterization.

1

My Left Foot

Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown

My Left Foot was the first movie to garner Daniel Day-Lewis one of his record-breaking trio of Best Actor Oscar wins. Timothée Chalamet rightly celebrated his own extraordinary commitment to the role of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown during his SAG Awards speech, but his efforts still pale in comparison to the commitment that Daniel Day-Lewis showed in playing real-life artist Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy.

Even though My Left Foot probably wouldn’t be made in the same way today, its warmth and humor make it a joy to watch rather than a despairing infatuation with suffering that could be considered exploitative. Day-Lewis’ performance is at the heart of the movie’s uplifting sentiments and darkly comic edge. The film isn’t a masterpiece, but something like this would definitely be a big challenge for Timothée Chalamet.