The beloved Willy Wonka is finally getting his own story told.
The new “Wonka” movie, starring Timothée Chalamet, tells the origin story of the quirky chocolatier who famously led five golden-ticket winners through his bizarre candy factory, first depicted on screen in the 1971 film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" starring Gene Wilder and again in Tim Burton's 2005 film "Charlie and the Chocolate factory" with Johnny Depp.
In a recent interview with TODAY.com, when asked if "Wonka" relates to either of the two previous films, Chalamet gives a clear answer: The new film was written as a "companion piece" to the original 1971 movie.
While Chalamet is a "big fan" of the Burton adaptation, he says the new "Wonka" is "really the companion piece to the first film, to the Gene Wilder film."
“This is sort of how Willy Wonka would have been before he’s sort of this mysterious, crazed figure in the chocolate factory," he says of the protagonist in "Wonka." "This is a young, hopeful, ambitious, head-full-of-dreams Willy Wonka who won’t take no for an answer."
The 27-year-old actor, who says his favorite candies are Raisinets, Milk Duds and Junior Mints, shares that the film even puts the song "Pure Imagination" at the forefront, the recognizable tune that Wilder sings in the 1971 version.
While "Wonka" is structured as a prequel to the original film, Chalamet says his depiction of Willy Wonka isn't directly inspired by previous versions of the character because "the story's different."
"It’s an original take," he says. "There isn’t the factory, there aren’t the golden tickets, but those themes are kind of snuck in there."
Chalamet explains there’s a “groundedness” to this version of Willy Wonka — something the original films couldn’t easily grasp with the focus being on Charlie Bucket, the young boy who wins one of the golden tickets.
“In the original versions, particularly the Gene Wilder one, (Willy Wonka) comes into the film like 30-45 minutes into the film. It’s really the story of Charlie,” Chalamet says. “This has an inherent difference, that it’s Willy really propelling his own story, he's at the center of it.”
"Wonka" director Paul King echoes Chalamet's sentiments of Charlie being the focus in the past two films, versus Willy Wonka being "the emotional heart of the movie" this time around — and how he thought Chalamet was the right actor to bring that pivot to life.
“To me, (Chalamet) was able to do all of the wild, whacky, eccentric side of Willy Wonka, but at the same time, carry the emotional heart of the movie, which I think is what neither Gene Wilder nor Johnny Depp had to do before because, of course, Charlie is the emotional heart of those movies," King explains to TODAY.com.
King calls Chalamet's performance "completely hypnotic" and that he's "one of the greatest actors of his generation."
“He’s a really special talent and I’ve loved him since I first saw him. He’s so able to inhabit a role,” King says. “You just feel like he is that character. It never really feels like acting to me. He’s so seemingly effortless.”
In order to bring the young Wonka to life, King says that in his mind, he combined the Wilder version of Willy Wonka with the character in Roald Dahl’s 1964 book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
“I grew up with the book and that is very near and dear to my heart,” King says. “But because I am the age I am, the Gene Wilder movie was the movie that was on TV, so I think in my childhood imagination, I sort of merged the two and that just felt like who Willy Wonka was.”
