Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure Timmy adoration: wearing the top hat and purple coat of Roald Dahl’s ingenious chocolatier, young star Chalamet is all set to satisfy our sweet tooth in a brand new origin story of one Willy Wonka.
Wonka
Whether you’ve loved Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for decades or have some doubts about this fresh musical prequel, let this article be your golden ticket to everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Wonka. The facts are fun, session times to see the movie are available right now—and the snozzberries really do taste like snozzberries!
1. Timothée Chalamet’s embarrassing high school skits got him the part
We’ve been obsessed with Chalamet ever since his Oscar-nominated breakout role in Call Me By Your Name, and the dude has mostly been in pretty serious projects since then—give or take a dreamboat Greta Gerwig role, or a satirical skater bro character here and there. It’ll be a treat to see the focused young talent kick up his heels a bit as a younger, more hopeful Willy Wonka, months before we revisit his steely messiah character in Dune 2.
Chalamet was apparently director Paul King’s “only and first pick” for the role, and was offered the part with no audition, after King saw that he could indeed sing and dance via…some corny high school talent show performances, that Timmy may or may not wish were wiped from the internet at this point. If you’re already a Timmy fan, you’ve 100% seen these videos: everyone else, please enjoy.
2. Other actors previously considered for Wonka? Ryan Gosling, Donald Glover, and Tom Holland
Warner Brothers acquired the rights to Roald Dahl’s seminal 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory back in 2016, and have been dreaming up a big, chocolatey Wonka origin story ever since. Two years later, the studio’s apparent shortlist for actors who might step into Wonka’s natty purple hat included future Ken song-and-dance man Ryan Gosling, rapper Childish Gambino/Donald Glover, and scandalous DC star Ezra Miller. Chalamet was announced in the role in 2021, allegedly earning $9 million for his appearance: around the same time, it was revealed that Spider-Man star Tom Holland had been a prominent contender, too.
3. Hugh Grant’s role as an Oompa Loompa has courted some controversy
Oompa loompa doompety dant/why are some people mad at Hugh Grant? Thanks to the magic of CGI, director King’s Paddington 2 star is shrunk down to Loompa size to act as Wonka’s buddy/hostage, performing lil dances and tin pipe ditties as Loompas are wont to do. But as this ScreenRant article summarises, actors with dwarfism and disability advocates have spoken out against the casting: Jackass star Jason Acuña sarcastically commented, “So I guess Hugh Grant, you’re now identifying as a little person.”
It’s a tough time in Hollywood to be a little person, with Disney’s Snow White remake also brewing up some backlash for its CGI dwarves, when real actors with dwarfism aren’t considered for roles. We’ll have to wait and see how Grant’s quirky take on Wonka’s workforce functions in the finished film.
4. Newcomer Calah Lane plays a sweet kid who reminds us of one Charlie Bucket
As we’ve seen in Gene Wilder’s classic Wonka performance, the chocolatier has a soft spot for hard-done-by kids with hearts of gold. It’s not hard to identify some of Charlie Bucket—the future inheritor of the Wonka empire in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—in new character Noodle (Calah Lane), a “wise, cynical” youngster who becomes Willy’s loudest cheerleader. “She knows what this world is like in a way that Willy doesn’t,” King explained to Empire of the plucky kid character. “That felt like a really lovely double-act to go with this grown-up who is naive and innocent.”
5. A trio of UK comics play Wonka’s foes Slugworth, Ficklegruber, and Prodnose
After the pretty Americanised Tim Burton remake of 2005, it’s neat to see that this visit to Wonka’s world is packed with distinctly British talent. Even the bad guys are icons of UK comedy telly! Matthew Baynton and Matt Lucas are known for their beloved sketch shows Horrible Histories and Little Britain (in addition, Baynton’s Horrible Histories castmate Simon Farnaby co-wrote the Wonka script, and Lucas has previously hosted The Great British Bake Off…so he knows a thing or two about sweet treats).
And as villainous candy cartel leader Slugworth, Paterson Joseph is having a ball of the time. Collider’s early take on the film described the baddies like so: “They feel like a sinister threat but are also clearly relishing the opportunity to getting playful with it, and I couldn’t get enough of that.”
6. Olivia Colman, Rowan Atkinson, and Keegan-Michael Key fill out the yummy ensemble
Paterson Joseph’s appearance also makes Wonka a bit of a Peep Show reunion, since he and Olivia Colman were once co-stars on that iconic UK cringe comedy. In Wonka, however, Colman and Tom Davis play the very Dahl-esque antagonists Bleach and Scrubbit, who force little Noodle into hard labour. Mr Bean himself Atkinson appears as an anxious priest, and sketch comedian Key is a cop who takes his addiction to Wonka’s candies way too far. It’s a classic Dahl trope to populate a whimsical, child-centered world with nasty, grotesque adult characters—we can’t wait to see these grown-ups get their comeuppance, whether they’re played by beloved performers or not.
7. It’s directed by the guy who brought us the delightful Paddington films
Paul King is a true king of heart-expanding, imaginative, family film. Getting his start in directing every episode of cult UK comedy series The Mighty Boosh, he’s now best known for his work behind the camera on Paddington and Paddington 2—certainly the most revered kids’ movies of the 2010s. His surreal, sentimental eye makes King a good match for the Chocolate Factory prequel, especially considering that bombastic Hugh Grant musical number at the end of Paddington 2.
8. Sally Hawkins (a.k.a. Paddington’s adoptive mum) plays Wonka’s mum
“Every good thing in this world started with a dream”, Hawkins narrates to Chalamet in the latest trailer for Wonka: “so you hang onto yours.” The British actress was an Oscar-nominee for her work in Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, but audiences now might know her best as the kindly Mrs Brown, who takes a certain marmalade-addicted bear into her London home. We were a tad devastated to hear that she wouldn’t appear in the upcoming third Paddington film, Paddington in Peru, but at least we’re getting one more collaboration between Hawkins and director King in the form of Wonka.
9. It’s a musical! Expect original songs alongside a new rendition of ‘Pure Imagination’
King told Empire Magazine that the decision to include songs in his Roald Dahl tribute “just felt natural…There’s lots of song in Dahl, and he’s always writing those amazing poems, which are almost the funniest bits of the book.” The original tunes are penned by Neil Hannon, singer and songwriter of pop group The Divine Comedy, with English composer Joby Talbot contributing a sweeping, sweet instrumental score. We can’t help but be curious about Timmy’s singing chops—we already know he can rap, after all…
10. Timmy designed exclusive Nike sneakers for the movie and they look, um, great
As part of a special promotional giveaway (that’s cruelly only available to US residents), Wonka’s leading man designed a pair of Nike Dunk Lows, with only an astoundingly limited five pairs being produced. To be honest, looking at the, uhh, unique colour palette and rustic textures of this thing? We’d rather get a golden ticket to the chocolate factory anyday.
“I definitely never thought I would get to be able to say that I got to design a Nike shoe, let alone a Dunk”, Chalamet told Complex. “The shoes perfectly represent…a young Willy Wonka that is ambitious, and joyful, and full of good spirit, and not quite that level of success yet.” We’re glad Timothée had fun putting these kicks together, and we are also glad that acting is his main job.
11. And he got to swim in real melted chocolate on the film’s set
The fantasy of being Willy Wonka, the world’s most imaginative and mysterious chocolatier, is probably tough to compare to its on-set reality. Poor Timmy said he drowned in “too much chocolate” while filming Wonka, admitting at Las Vegas’ CinemaCon that he also endured stomach aches and cramps from an overabundance of the delicious stuff. Nevertheless, he called the experience of shooting the entire film “a dream”. We hope this means that the movie’s choc rivers and waterfalls look a tad more appetising than the reddish, sewage-like waters of the original film…
12. Fans still wanna see a darker, depressing Wonka movie. Starring Jeremy Allen White, pls.
Here at Flicks, we generally abhor the trend of taking beloved pop culture properties and simply slapping a coat of Dark ‘n’ Gritty paint over the top; let this new Wonka movie be as silly, scrumptious, and light as a family Christmas release out to be! Sure, there’s room for a bleak, 12 Years A Slave-esque rendition of the Wonka story as told by the colonised and kidnapped Oompa Loompas somewhere in there, but would you take the kids to see that on their Xmas holidays?
We do, however, back the popular fancasting of The Bear star Jeremy Allen White as a younger version of Gene Wilder’s terrifyingly intense Wonka. Is the resemblance uncanny? Yes, Chef!
Jeremy Allen White should have been the ONLY choice to play young Willy Wonka. pic.twitter.com/dbyCAUIsDe
— Eli (@ObeyEIi) November 28, 2023
We’re not sure about White’s singing and/or dancing chops, but he could certainly bring the vaguely unhinged, child-murdering mood that made Wilder’s performance so strange and iconic. Timmy, by comparison, seems like a lovely young lad with a serious thing for chocolate—and we’re officially hungry to see more of his feel-good interpretation.
