During the last act of Dune: Part Three> (Warner Bros. 12.6), Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides runs around with a tennis-ball haircut. Which, of course, make him look much less attractive. Why did he lose his longish hair? Because director Denis Villeneuve wanted him to look 15 or 20 years older — a totally deranged decision. But that’s Villeneuve for you. A dweeby oddball who simply doesn’t get the sexy-movie-star thing. A blockage.
It doesn’t take a genius mentality to understand that fans of this or that movie star want their idols to look good in a flush, sexy, full-head-of-hair way. Tennis-ball Chalamet looks like a right-wing Aryan psycho from rural Idaho, and yet Villeneuve wanted Chalamet to look like this….he wanted Chalamet to look like an effing East Los Angeles gang-banger.
Imagine if Howard Hawks had insisted that Cary Grant wear a tennis-ball cut for Only Angels Have Wings, or if Alfred Hitchcock had insisted on tennis-balling Grant for his lead role in North by Northwest. If they had done so Hawks and Hitch would have been fired. Hell, blackballed.
Tennis-balled John Wayne in Red River. Tennis-balled Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Tennis-balled Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. Tennis-balled George Clooney in Michael Clayton.
People‘s Michelle Lee, 12.12.25:
“Last summer fans of the once curly-haired actor were shocked to see him out and about with what appeared to be a buzz cut that was confirmed in October. Turns out, he was just as surprised as everyone else.
“During a Dec. 12 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, the Oscar nominee, 29, said that his hair transformation, done on June 25 for his role in Dune: Part 3, started with what’s called a ‘3 millimeter hair cut.’ Then director Denis Villeneuve kept asking the star to go shorter and shorter with his hair.”
HE reaction: Because in terms of traditional movie-star glamour vibes, Villeneuve is a clueless clod.
People: “At the suggestion of a 1 millimeter chop, Chalamet said he practically ‘begged’ to have his hair kept longer. “You know, your hair…weirdly we’re all attached [to our hair]…it’s kind of like our personalities, these follicles that grow out of our heads”.
But his locks were “stolen.”
“It’s supposed to be a nice character shift, and I’m playing 15, 20 years older,” Timothee explained.