Timothée Chalamet's portrayal of Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown has garnered near-universal praise. Even if you're lukewarm on either Bob Dylan or Chalamet, it's hard not to find several aspects of this film charming, life-affirming, and just plain cool. This isn't to say A Complete Unknown is the best movie of all time—or even the best movie of 2024—but it's safe to say Chalamet gives it his all and is deserving of his awards season accolades. Just the scene where he's wearing the polka-dot shirt alone is worth the whole movie.
Recently, the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations were released, and in the category of Best Male Actor in a Leading Role, Chalamet is in a unique position. He's the only person nominated who is under 30. Wait. He's the only person nominated under 50?
That's right, at 29 years old, Timothée Chalamet is by far the youngest person in this category. He's facing off against Daniel Craig (56) for Queer, Adrien Brody (51) for The Brutalist, Colman Domingo (55) for Sing Sing and Ralph Fiennes (62) for Conclave. Even when Timmy turns 30 this coming December, he'll still be far younger than any of his current competition. Plus, it's a good bet that these SAG nominations will almost certainly predict the majority of the Oscar nods this year.
Related: Why the New Bob Dylan Movie With Timothée Chalamet Changed One Big Detail
Does it matter that all but one of the lead actors nominated here are over 50? In theory, no. Age is just a number, right? But the gulf between Chalamet's age and everybody else in this category is a little strange, mostly because he's the only one who represents a different generation. Other younger actors have been overlooked in the category, like 42-year-old Sebastian Stan, who earned praise for both A Different Man and The Apprentice. But is the age gap here a sign that we're running low on younger, big-deal male actors that everybody takes seriously?
Chalamet's nomination for A Complete Unknown might give him an edge over the other older guys though, simply because on some level, he's playing the ultimate old guy as a young man: Bob Dylan. Yes, Dylan has intergenerational appeal, but Chalamet playing Dylan in A Complete Unknown, in a sense, gives him credibility with older generations. (You could also argue that Chalamet playing Paul in Dune has its own sense of older-man energy since Dune is a favorite book of Boomers and Gen-Xers alike.)
The larger point is Chalamet is a man alone in the SAG award nominations, and it could be true for the Oscars, too. Hollywood awards don't determine the meaning or outcomes of generational divides, but if Chalamet claims victory over the 50-somethings for a film about a bygone era of youth, he may start a mini-revolution. Even if he himself is that revolution's only member.
