Christopher Nolan "Didn't Particularly Like" One of Timothée Chalamet's Scenes in Their Stellar Sci-Fi Masterpiece

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Timothée Chalamet as a young Tom looking pensive in Interstellar.

Published Feb 20, 2026, 8:11 AM EST

Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.

Having earned his third nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards at just 30 years old, Timothée Chalamet has blossomed into an unequivocal superstar. To suggest that the Marty Supreme star's roots were humble is a bit misleading, as his first big break came from starring in a beloved sci-fi epic by Christopher Nolan. In Interstellar, a film met with muted praise at best upon release in 2014 but has since been reclaimed as Nolan's most iconic movie alongside The Dark Knight, Chalamet played Tom, the teenage son of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), the absent father embarking on a spacy odyssey to save the future of planet Earth. Like many cinephiles, Interstellar is not only his favorite Nolan film, but it's also his favorite among his own filmography. Beyond his soulful performance, Chalamet proved he was a genuine star during the filming, as, much to the chagrin of his director, he defied directions and went with his gut to deliver an emotionally devastating scene.

Timothée Chalamet Initially Had a Bigger Role in 'Interstellar'

At a recent screening of Interstellar in IMAX 70mm in Los Angeles, Chalamet and Nolan reunited for a pre-screening chat. Despite being low on the call sheet, behind McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Michael Caine, Chalamet insists that the film has "remained my favorite project I’ve ever been in," as well as the movie he's watched the most. However, Interstellar was not always synonymous with beautiful memories. Upon learning that his part was cut down (the original Jonathan Nolan script, intended for Steven Spielberg to direct, centered around the relationship between Cooper and Tom), Chalamet recalled that he "wept for an hour," in disappointment. Now, it's all water under the bridge, with Nolan claiming in the sit-down that this version of the story never existed.

Interstellar is Nolan's most emotionally operatic film, and the waterworks start pouring in when Cooper plays messages sent to him by his family he left behind on Earth. Stuck in a spacecraft lightyears away from home, Cooper witnesses the circle of life, unable to hold his emotions together upon learning about the death of his father-in-law, Donald (John Lithgow), and witnessing his kids grow up, with Chastain and Casey Affleck playing the grown-up versions of Murph and Tom. Most people agree that Chalamet plays this extraordinary scene with the grace and sensitivity that have made him America's favorite movie star today, but while filming his video messages, Nolan felt like something was off.

Christopher Nolan Took Issue With One of Timothée Chalamet's Scenes in 'Interstellar'

"It felt too much for me. I didn’t particularly like it," Nolan told Chalamet 12 years later, regarding how he played the scene with a "dark tone" as a 17-year-old. Even though he was being directed by a filmmaking giant, Chalamet didn't waver. "I told you about it, and you went ahead and did whatever the f--k you wanted and carried on," Nolan recalled. Rather than take offense to his disobedience, Nolan respected his actor's commitment to his artistic choice. The final product underlines that all parties involved made the right creative decision, as the scene continues to be devastating on re-watch. Chalamet is especially a standout in this sequence, as the reticent and disaffected Tom gradually reveals vulnerability while speaking to his space-bound dad across the galaxy.

He may helm big-budget, large-scale movies with ornate set designs and narratives, but Christopher Nolan, whose adaptation of Homer's Odyssey hits theaters this July, is a true actor's director. There's a reason why so many major movie stars are willing to take on a minor role in one of his movies, as he allows his cast to express their own input and flex creative muscles. As a relative unknown in the industry, Chalamet was allowed to imbue his own personal touch in his performance, even if it didn't necessarily click with Nolan initially.

Working opposite screen icons in Matthew McConaughey and John Lithgow during the first section of Interstellar, which takes place on a dying crop field, Timothée Chalamet leaves an imprint on the film, and it's no surprise that he was on his way to earning his first Oscar nomination three years later for Call Me by Your Name. While his performance in Marty Supreme and his gonzo press tour presents an off-the-rails, rambunctious hustler, Chalamet's specialty comes in internalized, emotionally conflicted roles. As Tom Cooper, he embodies the archetypal moody teen while lending him austerity amid the threat of human extinction and the dread of losing his father. Everyone has Chalamet fever these days, but it took Christopher Nolan a little longer to catch it.

Interstellar is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.