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She knew he was going to be a star before everyone else.
She knew it long before her then-teen son ambled onto the stage of the 1,150-seat auditorium at New York’s LaGuardia High School with his baggy jeans falling off his lanky frame, stealing the annual talent show with his Lil’ Timmy Tim rapper routine; before he made eating a peach an X-rated sex act in the coming-of-age film “Call Me By Your Name”; and before he’d flip his mop of wild chestnut curls and have a gaggle of girls scream his name.
In fact, as the mother of 29-year-old actor Timothée Chalamet, Nicole Flender knew he was going to be a success when he truly was a “complete unknown.”
Before his baby face was on the cover of Time magazine, before he was the answer to a New York Times crossword puzzle, and long before his style made the best-dressed lists, he was just her son.
“He was a normal kid,” Flender said. “He wanted to be a soccer star.”
She’s a mom to 2 stars
She knew the theater was his calling when the crowd went wild for his high school rap persona — and not just because she was a biased mom who recognized his spark. “Everybody loved it,” she told Business Insider.
His star has certainly risen. He’s played fighters, lovers, Willy Wonka, and even King Henry V. He’s been in seven best picture Oscar-nominated films and twice been nominated for Academy Awards, for his performance as a lovestruck teen in “Call Me By Your Name” and as musician Bob Dylan in the biopic “A Complete Unknown.”
Flender is often his plus-one on the red carpet. “The photographers love us,” she said. “They always want me to get in the picture. They like to see a son who is close to his mother.”
She’s in a distinctive position as the mother of two stars. Timothée’s sister, Pauline Chalamet, four years his senior, is an actor and a director who splits her time between Paris and Los Angeles. She recently starred in Mindy Kaling’s HBO Max series, “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”
Thanks to Pauline, Flender will celebrate her first Mother’s Day as a grandma. “That’s what I’ll be called — it’s what my grandmother was called and what my kids called my mom,” she said.
She’s not surprised her kids are talented
Flender isn’t surprised that her kids have talent. They come from a showbiz family. Their grandmother, Enid Flender, danced on Broadway in shows like “Kiss Me Kate,” and their grandfather, Hal Flender, was an author and television writer who worked with many comedy greats, including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Woody Allen.
She’s a trained ballerina who spent years on national tours with musicals including “Fiddler” and “Gypsy.” Her brother Rodman Flender, a child actor, has been a filmmaker and TV director for shows like “The Office” and “Ugly Betty.”
Timothée was a performer at a young age, entertaining family, friends, and classmates. In elementary school, he did Disney commercials. In middle school, he appeared on “Law & Order.” Flender excitedly emailed everyone she knew about his prime-time debut, even though his character was murdered in the first minutes of the show.
Flender modestly takes little credit for her kids’ success. Both carved their own paths, she said. Pauline pursued ballet, starring in “The Nutcracker” at Lincoln Center with the School of American Ballet. “It was like training for the Olympics,” Flender said. Now she has her own production company.
Timothée excelled at travel soccer, she said, and his chess, sports, and Tae Kwon Do trophies still adorn the shelves in her theater district apartment, along with his acting awards.
She used to call him Tiny Tim
Known as “Timmy” to his friends and family, she called him “Tiny Tim” or “Toothless Tim” and later “Tall Tim” on family holiday cards, depending on his current status.
“He’s always been independent,” she said. At 17, Timothée had his parents (his French dad is a former journalist) sign papers saying he didn’t need a chaperone in Canada to film “Interstellar,” in which he plays Matthew McConaughey’s son. “He makes his own decisions about what projects to pursue,” she said, adding that she’s more of a cheerleader than a “momager.”
In fact, her kids rarely ask her for counsel on big life decisions. “He told me after the fact” that he had purchased what’s reportedly an $11 million mansion in Beverly Hills, despite the fact that she’s a real estate agent at the Corcoran Group in New York.
She also avoids offering dating advice. Her son has had a roster of celebrity girlfriends, starting with Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon in high school, the Mexican singer Eiza González, and Johnny Depp’s daughter, Lily-Rose. He’s now dating Kylie Jenner, a multimillionaire entrepreneur and part of the Kardashian clan.
Flender is often the last to know what’s happening in her son’s life. “Kylie was the one who told me that he would host ‘Saturday Night Live’ for the third time,” she said.
Hollywood hasn’t changed her son
Being his date for the SAG Awards was also a last-minute surprise. “I got a text on the Thursday before to ask if I’d be his date for that Saturday,” she said.
She raided her closet for a slinky black gown and hopped on a plane. When she joined him for the Oscars, she borrowed a royal-blue number from a friend.
There are perks to being a star’s mom during award season: She’s had full-glam hair and makeup done and been outfitted by Louis Vuitton. Cartier jewelers once blinged her with priceless diamonds for the Golden Globes. “They knock on your hotel door at 9 o’clock the next morning, asking for them back,” she noted.
Hollywood hasn’t changed her son, she said. “Not at heart. He keeps himself grounded.”
She remembers when she and Timothée could walk down the street unrecognized. Now, even a neighborhood stroll could end up as paparazzi fodder.
“They photographed us together in Soho and LA a year apart, and I was wearing the same vintage Fiorucci shirt,” she said, laughing. “He bought it for me, so I wear it when we’re together to show him I love it.”
Despite her children’s fame, Flender is very private. She’ll occasionally post an Instagram photo of herself dolled up for an awards show, but she avoids reading social media mentions of either kid.
She’s often surrounded by A-listers but says she’s not starstruck. Yet, she does admit to dropping her son’s name to get a photo with the basketball legend Charles Barkley at a bar recently. “I told him my son was a big basketball fan and he was happy to pose with ‘Timothée’s mom,'” she said.
Most of all, she’s proud to have two kids who have surpassed anything she could’ve imagined. “All I want is for them to be happy,” she said.
