When Tony Award–profitable choreographer Christopher Gattelli first met Timothée Chalamet to show him the right way to faucet dance for Wonka, Chalamet’s hair was dyed a brilliant purple/crimson as a result of he was in the course of filming the film Bones and All.
“It was a really enjoyable option to meet him,” Gattelli (Newsies) tells Dance Spirit about their introduction. It was Could 2021. Filming was slated to start that fall. Warner Bros. Photos, which distributed the movie, now in theaters nationwide, had rented what Gattelli felt was the most important room at Open Jar Studios in New York Metropolis for less than the 2 of them. They’d an hour and a half and received proper all the way down to enterprise.
“I simply [showed] him primary [steps]. ‘This can be a shuffle.’ ‘This can be a flap.’ [I showed him how] to string them collectively to really feel how his weight adjustments, to get in his bones the circulate of how steps comply with one another,” Gattelli says of their preliminary lesson.
From there, Gattelli continued to ship movies to Chalamet of recent steps and combos so he may maintain training whereas filming different initiatives. In between takes, Chalamet would ship again proof he was doing his homework. In a press assertion, Chalamet stated of doing the work: “Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. It was sensible as a result of by the point the film began, the bodily stamina was there.”
“His progress was actually, actually quick,” Gattelli boasts of Chalamet. The Name Me by Your Identify actor performs a younger, twentysomething Willy Wonka in Wonka, an unique prequel to the Roald Dahl youngsters’s novel Charlie & The Chocolate Manufacturing facility and the 1971 movie, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Manufacturing facility, starring Gene Wilder.
Chalamet faucet dances on a desk, waltzes, and even does [aerial work] Flying by Foy all through the film. “He labored his butt off,” Gattelli says. “I’ve by no means labored with somebody along with his stardom who actually put within the work.”
CALAH LANE as Noodle and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Willy Wonka in “Wonka”. Courtesy Warner Bros. Photos.
For Gattelli, whose Broadway choreography credit embrace a whopping 17 exhibits, most just lately The Cher Present and SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical, the job supply for choreographing Wonka got here from a love of his prior work on the 2016 Channing Tatum film, Hail, Caesar!, which options Tatum and an ensemble of tapping sailors within the quantity “No Dames” that pays homage to the Golden Age fashion of film musicals. The film can also be the resumé credit score that helped him rating the gig for his choreography on Hulu’s Schmigadoon!, which earned him an Emmy nomination for his work on Season 2.
“[Wonka director] Paul King noticed Hail, Caesar! and stated, ‘I would like whoever did that,’ ” Gattelli says of how he landed his greatest film credit score but, with a whole lot of dancers solid within the ensemble as townspeople. “He actually wished to seize the ’40s vibe. He actually wished it to have that genuine Forties film musical high quality. Paul loves dance, particularly tapping.”
In the event you watch Wonka intently, you’ll discover nods to the unique choreo, together with Wonka’s double kick down the steps in “Pure Creativeness,” and his fast step down and again up in “A Hatful of Goals,” one of many six unique new songs by Neil Hannon. Gattelli says he based mostly plenty of Wonka’s actions along with his signature high hat and cane based mostly on how Fred Astaire danced round with a high hat and cane, particularly in High Hat.
Ultimately, all of the early apply paid off. The movie options Chalamet doing intricate footwork, like a step shuffle pullback. “All of that was difficult for him, however he received it. I used to be thrilled. I used to be so pleased with him,” Gattelli says. “He’s tapping up there with West Finish and Broadway performers, maintaining and doing it.”
