Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan in Barbie?! It almost happened! But it’s Hollywood. And sometimes even the best of ideas don’t pan out.
During his Wednesday night appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Chalamet confirmed the long-running rumor that he was supposed to appear in Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy centered around the iconic Mattel dolls, alongside none other than his Little Women and Lady Bird co-star.
“There was an idea for Saoirse Ronan and I to do a cameo in it,” Chalamet shared. “I don’t know what the cameo would have been. I think it would have been one of the rejected Kens or Barbies. Not Allan, but something. Maybe there was a reject French one.”
And it sounds like it wasn’t just “an idea.” The conversation was apparently serious, to the point he actually met with Gerwig.
“I did, because when I finished Wonka the Barbie set had been built, so it was kind of going from fantastical London, chocolate,” Chalamet said before praising Barbie‘s set. “The set is insane. It’s amazing.”
And, speaking of sets, the Wonka set has since been demolished, but Chalamet, who portrays Willy Wonka in the Paul King-directed project, shared that he did snatch a memento from the set.
“I did jack a jacket,” he admitted. “There was five of them. So, one of them is at my house.”
Chalamet also had the honor of helping design a Nike sneaker for Wonka, aptly dubbed Wonka Dunks. Chalamet said he actually traveled to Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, to design the shoes. Only five pairs exist in the world. One pair belong to him. Another pair he gifted to his good friend and Dune co-star Zendaya.
“Zendaya gets a pair because she’s awesome,” he said.
ET recently caught up with Chalamet at the Los Angeles premiere of Wonka, and he had good reason to be ecstatic, after earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture in a Musical or Comedy.
“Woke up this morning very grateful,” he said. “First big L.A. premiere, ever.”
He also dished on whether he’s game for a sequel.
“If there was a story to be told,” the Call Me By Your Name star said when asked if he would be in for a Wonka 2. “And evidently there is.”
Director Paul King told ET that he would “love to” make a follow-up film for Chalamet to star in as there’s still 25 years between his Willy Wonka film and the Gene Wilder version that they attempted to connect it to.
“Something twisted happens,” Chalamet noted of the gap between the two versions of the character. “I don’t know how we started like this and end there — I don’t know what the story is.”
Wonka hits theaters nationwide on Friday.
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