‘I want to be great or nothing’: Timothée Chalamet gave the perfect Amy March vibes with his SAG speech
The race to the Academy Awards has is underway and Timothée Chalamet is still very much in it. Especially after his win for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Chalamet has been up against The Brutalist star Adrien Brody at award shows this season and while Chalamet hasn’t won previously, he took home the Actor and became the youngest actor to win a SAG Award at 29 years old. During his speech, he talked about how grateful he was but said something that I found inspiring.
Chalamet won for his role as Bob Dylan in the James Mangold movie A Complete Unknown about the rise of Dylan until he “went electric.” What made Dylan stand out is that he always knew how good he was and made sure others respected that about him. Chalamet is really no different. He used his speech to talk about how he wants to be remembered as one of the greats. He grew up watching Daniel Day Lewis and actors of that calibre and he shared how he wanted that same attention and praise in his own work.
For those fans of Little Women who loved his take on Theodore “Laurie” Laurence in the Greta Gerwig adaptation, you may recall how his speech feels a lot like Amy March (Florence Pugh) and I love it. Chalamet said “I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that but I want to be one of the greats, I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight, I’m as inspired by Daniel Day Lewis, Marlon Brando, Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and I want to be up there.”
I want to be great or nothing
In Little Women, Amy March says to Laurie that her life as a woman basically means she has to ask men for any success she wants. She pushes back at that idea by telling him that she wants to be “great or nothing.” For me, it is a speech that means a great deal to me both as an Amy March girl and as a modern woman.
Still, women are told not to share their desire for success or told to be polite about things. What I love about Chalamet’s speech is that we see those same ideals put on young men but actors like Chalamet who know their worth are not going to sit ideally by.
He made history, became the youngest man to take home that SAG Award and he used his time to talk about greatness and how he wants to be remembered. I think that is kind of iconic and very Bob Dylan of Chalamet.
Dylan knew his worth, knew what power his music held, and use it to his advantage. I love that Chalamet is allowing his speech at the SAG Awards to represent what Dylan’s music always did and I hope that this is just the beginning to the award success that Chalamet should get in his career.
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