Pauline Chalamet

Behind-the-Scenes Training

Pauline Chalamet was born in New York in 1992, amid the constant noise of Broadway theaters. Her childhood lacked the glamour of the red carpets her younger brother frequents today. She grew up in subsidized housing for artists in Hell's Kitchen, where success was the exception and hard work the daily norm.

She studied ballet at the School of American Ballet for almost a decade. A serious back injury halted her dance aspirations before she turned eighteen. So she decided to enroll at Bard College to study Political Science and Theater. She graduated in 2014 and made a drastic decision to step away from the American system.

Paris was her refuge and her school.

There she worked as a babysitter, a waitress and at a library while shooting independent short films on non-existent budgets. She wasn't chasing instant fame in Los Angeles because she preferred to learn the craft from a European foundation. In 2016, she appeared in the short En colo and a year later in Agathe, projects that barely reached a few hundred people at local festivals.

Making the Leap into the Industry

In 2020, Judd Apatow gave her first real break in mainstream film. She played Joanne in the movie The King of Staten Island alongside Pete Davidson. It was a supporting role, but enough for casting directors in the United States to start asking about that actress who spoke French fluently and had a naturally cynical gaze.

Mindy Kaling cast her in 2021 to star in the series The Sex Lives of College Girls. Her character is Kimberly Finkle, a working-class student who must navigate an elite university she can't afford. The series became a cornerstone of the Max platform and gave her the financial stability needed to turn down mediocre projects.

And the gamble paid off.

But Pauline didn't limit herself to acting in front of the camera. In 2019, she founded the production company Gummy Films with Rachel Walden and Luca Balser. Its goal is to finance stories that the traditional studio system often passes over for lack of mass commercial potential. She prefers control over the final cut to appearing on the covers of fashion magazines.

Production and independence

In 2023, she premiered What Doesn’t Float, a dark comedy anthology set in a suffocating, unglamorous New York. She also produced the film herself and starred in one of the segments. The movie was shot on real city locations without shutting down traffic or relying on large technical setups, keeping a documentary-style tone.

Creative control is his absolute priority.

During 2024, she took part in the drama Anywhere Anytime directed by Milad Tangshir. The film premiered at the Venice Critics' Week and explores job insecurity through the life of an immigrant in Turin. It is a political, spare kind of cinema that stands far apart from the big superhero productions dominating the international box office.

The third season of her main series was shot in 2024 with a significant change of locations in Washington, D.C. The budget per episode for this production is around five million dollars. Pauline keeps her residence between Paris and New York to avoid the Hollywood bubble whenever the filming schedule allows.