When 29-year-old Timothée Chalamet earned his second Oscar nomination for playing a young Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” he stepped into one of the most rarefied clubs in Academy Award history: Men who’ve received two leading actor nominations before they’ve turned 30.
As first noted by film journalist and historian Mark Harris on Bluesky, the last actor to achieve this feat was James Dean, who was posthumously nominated in back-to-back years for 1955’s period family drama “East of Eden” and 1956’s Western drama “Giant” after he died in a car accident at 24. Prior to Dean, only two other men earned multiple nominations in the leading category before finishing their 20s. Mickey Rooney was nominated for best actor at 19 for the 1939 Busby Berkeley musical “Babes in Arms,” and then again four years later at 23 for “The Human Comedy” (which was, in fact, more of a dramedy). And Marlon Brando was nominated at 27 for 1951’s Tennessee Williams adaptation “A Streetcar Named Desire”; at 28 for 1952’s Western “Viva Zapata!”; and at 29 for 1953’s Shakespeare adaptation “Julius Caesar.” (Brando won the following year at 30 for 1954’s “On the Waterfront.”)
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When Chalamet earned his first best actor nomination for 2017’s “Call Me By Your Name” at 22, he was the third-youngest nominee ever in that category, after Rooney and Jackie Cooper, who was nominated for the 1931 comedy “Skippy” when he was 9 years old.
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While Oscar voters rarely honor twenty-something men for their leading performances, the best actress category is overflowing with women who earned multiple nominations before turning 30, from Joan Fontaine (1940’s “Rebecca,” 1941’s “Suspicion” and 1943’s “The Constant Nymph”) and Audrey Hepburn (1953’s “Roman Holiday” and 1954’s “Sabrina”) to Jodie Foster (1988’s “The Accused” and 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs”) and Kate Winslet (1997’s “Titanic” and 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). Even two of Chalamet’s former co-stars have earned this honor: Saoirse Ronan (2015’s “Brooklyn,” 2017’s “Lady Bird” and 2019’s “Little Women”) and Jennifer Lawrence (2010’s “Winter’s Bone,” 2012’s “Silver Lining’s Playbook” and 2015’s “Joy”).
The youngest winner for best actor, meanwhile, remains Adrien Brody, who won at 29 for 2002’s “The Pianist” and was nominated again this year for “The Brutalist.”
Correction: This story was updated to reflect that Marlon Brando also received best actor nominations before turning 30.
