You know Timothée Chalamet. He’s one of the most popular actors in the Hollywood circuit right now, making headlines for everything from his charming behavior to his friendship with Dune co-star and Gen Z princess Zendaya. But we’re not here to talk about Timothée (for once) — instead, we’re shifting focus to his equally talented older sister, Pauline Chalamet, who’s been making waves for her recent starring role as Kimberly in Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max.
Pauline is 29 years old, to Timothée’s 26, and while she may not be as famous as her brother just yet, she has a colorful background in the performing arts industry, ranging from experience in ballet and theater to appearances in French movies and Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island alongside Pete Davidson. With her turn in The Sex Lives of College Girls’s cast, she’s making her case for the induction of another Chalamet into Hollywood’s good graces. Here’s everything you need to know about Pauline Chalamet.
Pauline’s big movie break was in The King of Staten Island.
She made her feature film debut as supporting character Joanne in Judd Apatow’s 2020 comedy The King of Staten Island, opposite Pete Davidson, Marisa Tomei, Steve Buscemi, and other huge Hollywood names.
Pauline’s filmography also includes a variety of short films, many of which are in French, like 2017’s Agnes et Milane (which she wrote herself) and 2021’s Comme des Grands. Her work stretches all the way back to 1999, though, with her first onscreen appearance in an episode of One Life to Live.
She’s done ballet since she was a child, and theater since high school.
Like her brother, Pauline attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, in New York. While there, she studied drama, building on the stage experience she’d gained starting at the School of American Ballet when she was eight years old and including performances with the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theater.
In a December 2021 interview with WWD, she spoke about her upbringing, saying, “My way into everything was through the theater. There are so many plays that I saw growing up that just made me realize that I wanted to be on stage doing that. So it was definitely through ballet, and then stage, and then theater and acting. And then I kind of made my way to film.”
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing for her artistic future — in fact, Pauline told Vanity Fair, “By the time I graduated from high school, though, I was in a bit of a rebellious phase towards everything I had known growing up.” She wanted to become a lawyer, but said that “it was like something in my life was missing,” so she ended up double-majoring in both political studies and theater at Bard College. She graduated in 2014.
Her parents, Nicole Flender and Marc Chalemet, are also successful.
Pauline and Timothée have an American mother, Nicole Flender, and French father, Marc Chalamet, both of whom have worked in high-profile jobs. Their mother attended LaGuardia just like her kids, and is now a real estate broker, according to the New York Post. She’s also a former Broadway dancer, writer, and Tony Award voter. Their dad, meanwhile, has worked as an editor for UNICEF, according to GQ.
She’s close with her brother Timothée, but doesn’t feel overshadowed.
W Magazine stated that Pauline and Timothée are very close, but that doesn’t mean she gives into the hype around her brother. Though many have debated Timothée’s popularity among fans and movie directors alike, Pauline told W, “Timothée is a hard worker. When I see him on the big screen, for me that’s just the result of his job.”
She added that his fame doesn’t really bother her, either, saying, “As for the rest, I don’t really experience the frenzy around him. I guess it’s kind of crazy, but it doesn’t affect my life at all.”
She’s mastered the art of the casual Instagram.
Pauline’s Instagram, which currently boasts 229k followers, provides great insight into her laidback attitude and hobbies, like reading (a lot of reading) and playing piano. She’s also hilarious; on her birthday this year (January 25), Pauline shared a photo of her mask-covered face and a joking caption: “i learned a lot this year, including the size of my face.” A funny, COVID-conscious queen? We have to stan.
She speaks French (but struggled with her accent while filming The Sex Lives of College Girls).
Pauline lives in Paris, in a trendy neighborhood called Château Rouge, according to W. She first moved to France after her college graduation in 2014 — without her family’s knowledge. She explained her decision to NYLON in a November 2021 interview, saying, “I told my family after I had signed a lease” and adding that the move, plus, her subsequent enrollment in Studio Théatre d’Asnières to take acting classes made for “one of the best years of my life.”
Like Timothée, Pauline is fluent in French, but unlike him, she has a French accent that she struggled with while portraying an American student on The Sex Lives of College Girls. She told W Magazine that she had to work on her American accent, and her language coach called her out for it. “She kept correcting me and being like, that’s too French!” she told W. “I was so embarrassed! It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.”
Honestly, I think Timothée is the lucky one here — Pauline seems like the coolest possible older sister. Here’s hoping she continues to grace our screens for a long time.