Timothée Chalamet may be one of the world’s most famous movie stars right now, but long before Dune, the young actor was an aspiring YouTuber and Xbox controller modder.
Like many of Hollywood’s biggest names, Chalamet got into acting at a very young age, earning his first TV acting credit when he was just 13. And of course, even before receiving an Oscar nomination for Call Me by Your Name, he had already appeared in Interstellar. However, it turns out Chalamet originally intended to have a very different claim to fame: starting his own controller
modding business.
Thanks to some thorough investigative journalism from Vice, it was all but confirmed that Chalamet was the voice and face behind the obscure channel, ModdedController360. Far from his acting success, it currently sits at around 18,000 subscribers - most of which have only subscribed since this news broke.
Rumors of Chalamet's side gig first popped up around 2018, when a fan page started speculating on just why the actor’s own channel was liking videos made by a kid in 2010. All of these videos featured a teenager showing off his - admittedly pretty decent - custom Xbox 360 controllers.
ModdedController360 only has 3 videos uploaded throughout a span of just over a month, yet his swan song "NEW! Red Tiger Xbox 360 Controller" has the most views.
It took a great deal of work to link Chalamet to the videos, relying on everything from a tiny scar on one of the actor's finger, to his furniture in old pictures from his Instagram. It was all worth it in the end, however, as the actor himself has now confirmed the theory.
The way Chalamet’s face lights up when he tells the story is simply priceless - unlike the $10 price tag he had on his custom controller service back in 2010. He does admit that he only made $30 off three clients during its run, but that's still a pretty decent return for his short-lived venture.
As seen in the interview, Chalamet still loves gaming just as much as he did when was 14. However, considering that he's got two big films coming up - Willy Wonka and Dune: Part Two - he probably doesn’t have that much time to enjoy his Fornite and Dune crossover.
He also reveals that his parents never let him get a Nintendo 64, but they obviously changed their tune when it came to the Xbox 360. Luckily the actor can still play plenty of 360 games on the new Xbox Series X - and get some shoddy N64 games on a Nintendo Switch to see what he missed.