Before he was a movie star, Timothée Chalamet was an up-and-coming Xbox 360 controller modder
Chalamet had a YouTube channel called ModdedController360
Film Features Timothée Chalamet
Everyone has to start somewhere. This holds true even in the case of still-pretty-youthful movie stars like Timothée Chalamet. He prepared for his current ascent to the upper echelons of Hollywood—and the titles of Padishah Emperor and Kwisatz Haderach—by hosting a YouTube channel where he sold customized Xbox 360 controllers.
Vice enlisted the help of, no joke, “a security expert who investigates war crimes” for a look into the question of whether or not a YouTube channel called ModdedController360 (which last uploaded a video in 2010) belonged to Chalamet.
The publication’s attention was piqued by long-standing rumors that the anonymous boy selling cool 360 controllers painted in various patterns (red and black tiger stripe; blue and silver; a festive green and red) and shouting out Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as the “best video game out there right now” was a baby Chalamet. And so, it embarked upon an “open-source intelligence investigation.”
Though we can’t see his face, young Chalamet announces himself in the videos with a cursory “What’s good, YouTube?” before demonstrating his work. He also lets people know whether or not the controllers are available to buy (for, in one case, a reasonable $10 plus shipping and handling on top of the base controller price).
The date of the videos and Chalamet’s age match up, though the investigation needed firmer evidence before a conclusion could be drawn.
The article follows Vice’s attempts to perform forensic voice comparisons before settling on image comparisons instead. Matching details from one of Chalamet’s Instagram photos of himself as a kid with those from the ModdedController360 videos (a finger scar, chair pattern, floor and rug colors and placement) revealed “compelling” but not “definitive proof” that Chalamet was indeed the boy in the videos.
After publishing what they knew, Vice was sent a recent interview clip where Chalamet explains that he “had a YouTube channel people found” where he “used to paint-mod controllers.”
“It made 30 bucks,” he says while Zendaya laughs, sitting next to him, adding that his business ended prematurely because his parents were mad about the spray paint mess he made in the house.
To explore further documentary evidence, check out the Vice article. As of the time of writing, Chalamet does not appear to be taking any orders for $10 (plus shipping and handling) Xbox controller customizations. We will, of course, let people know if and when this changes.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]
17 Comments
That’s nothing. Tom Holland used to make nude patches for old NES games.
That’s nothing. Ryan Gosling used to write official game guides for Sega Genesis games in the early ‘90s.
That’s nothing. Taron Egerton had an Angelfire site that said how to revive Aerith in FF7, but only if you had a gameshark.
That’s nothing. Kanye West made a start making beats for an x-rated video game he coded and made the artwork for himself.
Neither here nor there but Kanye as I recall was a huge fan of the Turbografx-16 back in the day.
He was. Unlikely that he’d be making it for the Turbografx-16, although that does match up with the year he was 12, 1989 – on the account of lack of easily accessible developer tools. He’d be programming BASIC on a C64, Apple II or a DOS PC most likely.
I have it on good authority that Kanye is fluent in 6502 assembly.
6502s and Heartbreaks
Daisy Ridley once shared a ROM on limewire that was supposed to be Famicom hentai but was actually an undeletable 0 byte garbage file.
That was before he could afford all those zippers.
I was actually hoping “modding” meant actual electronics, soldering, etc. Then I’d be impressed. Painting some stripes? Not so much.
Did he also mod that ugly-ass jacket he’s wearing in the header image?
Is the young woman in the above photo brandishing a wooden spoon with the image of Chalamet burned onto it?
It’s a miracle!
I’ve had this theory for years that this NBC series The Office is actually based on a British show.I wonder if this security expert is around to help me finally get to the bottom of it all.
From Tweak to Twink: The Rise of Chalamet
“a security expert who investigates war crimes”
Well. Nice to know that he apparently doesn’t have any more urgent jobs right now. No war criminals out there anymore?