Timothée Chalamet Talks Playing A Young Henry V In ‘The King’

By Corey Atad. Published: 2 Sep 2019 9:59 AM

Timothée Chalamet. Photo: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Timothée Chalamet is “The King”.

The 23-year-old stars as Henry V in the new film, which has its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Monday.

Chalamet spoke about the film at a Venice press conference.

“Even to this day there are people born in royal families, and wealth or something,” he said. “And the struggle of that is less in status and more in humanity.”

The actor also spoke about how the film, which is adapted from a series of Shakespeare plays, brings a fresh take to the classic tales.

“In the Shakespeare productions of the last century or something…there was a real aversion to using young actors for these roles,” Chalamet said. “There’s something haunting or disturbed about young people wielding so much power.”

He added, “There’s modern allegories [of what’s represented in the film] in the world. There are people still today that come into power by lineage…and who wield it in any way they want.”