Timothée Chalamet‘s latest film, Marty Supreme, didn’t win any of the nine Oscars it was nominated for.

And the Oscar goes to… Michael B. Jordan. 

The end of that sentence was not what Timothée Chalamet had been hoping for as he sat on the edge of his front row seat, cameras fixed on his face to capture every millisecond of his reaction to not winning Best Actor – the biggest prize in acting – for the third time in his career.

And for Chalamet the disappointments kept coming. His latest film, Marty Supreme, which had found some success at both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice awards, had been heavily tipped to dominate the 2026 Academy Awards, with nominations across nine categories including; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

On the night, Marty Supreme lost every single one of them. It’s since been referred to as one of the biggest snubs in recent Oscars history.

It’s been a shock result for Chalamet, who has been an inescapable face in cinema in the last few years. His projects have been plentiful and wide-ranging, from family favourite Wonka to the high-action sci-fi franchise Dune to embodying Bob Dylan in 2024’s biopic, A Complete Unknown. 

Despite only being 30 years-old, the IMDB lists 221 acting credits to his name. He got his first film break in 2014, but it was 2017’s Call Me By Your Name that earned him his first Oscars nod. To date he’s received four Academy Award, nine Actor Award, Six BAFTA, five Golden Globe and 10 Critics Choice Nominations.

And yet, despite his range and his ambition, the trophy cabinet remains rather empty. No Oscar, no BAFTA, and only one Golden Globe.  

Bouncing back after disappointment 

There’s no denying Chalamet’s talent, or his position as one of Hollywood’s most booked actors. But how to you quantify or prove your success when you consistently fall short of securing the recognition you feel you deserve? 

Furthermore, how can you bounce back and recover your reputation when things don’t go your way? 

Whether it’s missing out on an Academy Award or a promotion at work, professional loss can be difficult to overcome. The immediate instinct could be to hide – which is difficult to do when you hold a publicly facing role and need to paste on a smile in the face of disappointment, catastrophise about what comes next, and throw yourself into a new project – burying your head and your disappointments in the sand. But research shows that such actions do little to help the disappointment fade.  

Your response to your failure often matters far more than the failure itself. Getting it right can enable you to emerge on the other side with your reputation, your sense of self and even your future prospects stronger than they were before. 

The dangers of being too resilient 

Maintaining a stiff upper lip in troubling times can backfire. Whilst there’s thought to be a strength in maintaining a dignified silence or adopting a confident, unruffled air, Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic of University College London warns it could create more damage than it solves. 

In a study co-authored with business psychologist Dr Derek Lusk, he explores the dark side to resilience, finding that too much can result in making a person overly tolerant of adversity in the future. In professional settings, this could result in putting up with difficult, demoralising situations for far longer than needed – risking damage to themselves and further damage to their professional reputations, and enhancing the need to stand firm. 

There comes a point when staying strong stops being an act. The researchers state that bold, highly resilient individuals can, over time, become increasingly unaware of their limitations, and can even overestimate their own performance, resulting in them becoming resistant to any feedback or guidance that may actually help them improve their performance.    

Being self-aware the authors point out – is essential for any genuine career development. Keep the mask on for too long and, at some point, the façade will start to crack. Acknowledging the reality of the situation is not the weakness it may initially seem to be. 

Fighting back and picking your battles wisely

This sentiment is backed up by research from the Yale School of Management and the University of Georgia. Instead of slinking into the shadows or refusing to acknowledge a professional setback, Professors Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward highlight the value of “firing back”. 

In an article published in Harvard Business Review, the professors share their analysis of how some of the world’s most prominent leaders rebuilt their careers and their reputation following public professional failures. Their conclusion, that denial or silence do little to make a problem go away, and can even prolong any reputational damage that might come from falling short, as the silence allows others to make their own assumptions.

Those who take steps to manage the narrative, they state, who address difficult things publicly and clearly, often come out better on the other side. 

Sonnenfeld and Ward went one further, sharing a five-step recovery framework for leaders to use when assessing how to respond to professional setbacks. “Fight rather than flee” is the first step. Others on the list include recruiting others to champion your cause, speaking honestly about troubling events to re-establish trust and build goodwill, and by making new plans for the future. 

However, it’s not just about shouting your perspectives far and wide to all. Choose your moments and your audiences wisely, as well as your words. Deciding whether and how to engage is often where people go wrong, they share. 

For Chalamet, amid speculation that he and girlfriend Kylie Jenner walked out of the Oscars after a difficult evening, and a recent no-show at the launch event of the new Dune film, he may do well to actually address the media about his feelings on missing out yet again on the Best Actor award, he may do well to acknowledge his disappointment as well as share his praise for his fellow nominees, and then share what he hopes to accomplish next. 

Acceptance and self-love 

There is a difference between self-flagellation and acceptance of fault. According to Professor Kristin Neff of the University of Texas, giving yourself a little grace and treating yourself with kindness can be an effective motivator for moving on after a professional failure. 

Whilst many may advocate for tough-love or self-criticism as a motivator for self-improvement, Neff’s research finds the opposite approach to be more effective. Self-compassion, she shares, removes the need to repress or avoid negative feelings which can limit the ability to move on. Processing your feelings in the aftermath of a disappointment and allowing them to pass frees up the mind to focus on bigger and better things. 

Not only this, but engaging in self-affirming care can help to rebuild self-confidence and make genuine self-improvements that can contribute to future success.  

The concept is one also championed by Professor Fred Luthans of the University of Nebraska. His work into building Psychological Capital (or PsyCap) refers to how building strength in four set psychological resources; hope, efficacy, resilience  and optimism (making the appropriate acronym of HERO) can mediate the negative consequences of failure and enhance the ability to learn from it. 

Becoming a better HERO, his studies find, can improve job satisfaction, organisational commitments, and performance.  

Such a sunny perspective, he states, is not a fixed trait – it can be learned and developed. Simple activities such as rating your levels of each HERO quality, dedicating time writing about your desired best possible future for yourself, and also listing the challenges you’ve overcome and how can all help you to appreciate your capabilities and build your resilience, helping you overcome future challenges.   

Perhaps focusing on the sheer number of nominations Chalamet has earned for his work, rather than those he didn’t convert into wins could help to redress a negative mindset and refocus on future goals. It’s a tactic recently employed by Chinese Olympic Skier Eileen Gu, who went on record to publicly remind a reporter that, despite the perceived disappointment of gaining a silver rather than gold medal in Italy, she is one of the most decorated female Olympians in existence. 

Dune Part Three is set for release this summer and Wonka 2 is apparently in pre-production. This, along with the two other reported-but-yet-unnamed projects he’s been liked to are perhaps helpful reminders for Chalamet that, like Gu, he remains very much at the top of his game. 

Learning from setbacks 

Winning an award may just come down to luck and timing. Similarly, losing one is often characterised as unlucky rather than a failing per se, but the disappointment that comes from falling short of a goal, especially if it’s happened repeatedly, can make us wary to try again. However, playing it safe, research shows, hinders us from learning from our mistakes and growing. 

Professor Ben Bryant of IMD Lausanne knows a thing or two about failure – or at least how to fail well. His work explores how people’s experiences, good and bad impact professional development, specifically our capacity to keep leaning and growing.

“Successful experiences make us feel great. Failure makes us feel sad or angry. These emotional responses make it difficult to learn,” he shares in his article for IMD’s CEO Learning Centre. “Success will likely create a positive sensation and a desire for recognition and self-congratulation, but such emotions only help to confirm the person’s assumptions and delude them into thinking they have what it takes. Who would want to spoil that feeling?” 

Whilst success may lead us to believe our own hype and not delve too much further into the circumstances that helped us get there, similarly, the emotional response to failure can also hold us back from looking to closely at how and why it happened. “We might thus avoid learning to avoid unpleasant feelings,” he continues. 

Bur defensive behaviour, he states is actually self-defeating. As many people say that some of their most painful experiences also generate significant learning opportunities, it’s important for people – especially those in positions of power or influence – to examine those feelings in order to identify their underlying cause and benefit from them.  

Good or bad, it is our experiences that provide the most fertile ground to learn from. Learning, he concludes, is a choice. If you can adopt and develop a learning mindset, you’ll be in a better position not only to understand how you may have taken a wrong turn in the past and be better positioned to defend yourself and reinforce your capability in the future. 

The “phoenix rising from the ashes” trope is one well-used by Hollywood. Perhaps Chalamet’s homework might involve a movie night or two watching fallen giants own their failings and use them to accomplish something bigger. 

The power of failing together  

There’s a reason why actors’ speeches can be so long at award ceremonies. A lot of work goes into making them look and sound good, meaning there’s a lot of people to thank. 

Marty Supreme may have earned nine nominations from the Academy, but not all of those, nor their losses sat solely on Chalamet’s shoulders.

Josh Safdie lost the Best Director award to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, and along with co-writer Ronald Bronstein missed out on securing both Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing, Jennifer Venditti did not get to take home the Best Casting award… Chalamet’s name is only attached to two of Marty Supreme’s award categories – Best Actor and Best Picture due to his additional role as one of the film’s producers.

In fighting back disappointment and criticism, there is a strength and some consolation to be found in numbers. Research from Professors Rob Cross and Danna Greenberg at Babson College alongside author Karen Dillon finds that resilience to disappointments and setbacks can be found in, and developed by having strong relationships at work. 

Building bonds with colleagues can help to fight back against work pressures and alter the magnitude of the challenges people face. Working with and being a person who can provide empathy, levity, or perspective to a difficult time can help to enhance resilience simply by being reminded that you are not alone. 

This bit of additional breathing room not only provides a mental buffer but can also help us to see the path forward in times of difficulty. 

Reaching out, the authors reiterate, is not a weakness. Resilience can be built through others, as can a stronger sense of purpose. 

The lesson here? Make good friends with those around you. Remember your successes are often not only your own to benefit from and, similarly, failures are unlikely to be a result of only one person or action. Sharing both can help ease the burden. 

For that reason, and that reason alone, I hope that when Timothée Chalamet finally ascends the stage to grasp that golden statue, his speech is very, very long.  

By, Kerry Ruffle

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