Timothée Chalamet: The Unlikely Face of Pro-Natalism?

In an interview with Vogue this month, French-American actor Timothée Chalamet made some surprisingly subversive comments. The 29-year-old expressed his disgust at people who take pride in being child-free by choice. He recalled how a friend of his had been “bragging about not having kids and how much time it afforded them to do other stuff.” Chalamet said that his immediate thought was, “Holy sh*t. Oh my God. Bleak.” The Vogue interviewer wrote that Chalamet did recognise that “some people can’t have children or are never in a position to”; however, “he does believe procreation is the reason we’re here.” He also said that becoming a father “could be on the radar” for himself. 

This incredibly obvious point struck many of Chalamet’s fangirls as offensive and reactionary. Some fans apparently took to social media to accuse him of disseminating “pronatalist propaganda,” “glorifying breeding,” and “alienating people with infertility or trauma.” These allegations are all plainly hysterical. Chalamet was simply articulating the biological impulse that almost every human being has felt. Whether you are pro, anti, or ambivalent towards having your own children or the state of your nation’s birthrates, practically every person alive will have, at some point, felt an innate urge to reproduce—even if they were unable to or decided not to for other reasons. If this were not the case, humanity would have died out a long time ago. And yet saying this out loud has become shocking to so many people. 

Certainly, in Hollywood, being overtly pro-family is a kind of taboo. For years, the only acceptable message for young actors (actresses, in particular) was to insist that work came first, that children were a distant “maybe,” to be postponed until their late thirties, if they were to have any at all. Something in this culture is shifting, though, particularly among the stars of Generation Z. 

Actress Sydney Sweeney—who recently caused an upset over a jeans ad that critics thought promoted “eugenics” and “white supremacy” and subsequently refused to apologise for it—evidently feels similar to Chalamet. Back in 2022, at 24 years old, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she “always wanted to be a young mom” but was “worried about how this industry puts stigmas on young women who have children and looks at them in a different light.” In a later interview with Variety, she said, “I love acting, I love the business, I love producing, I love all of it. But what’s the point if I’m not getting to share it with a family?” She remains sure that “the time will come, and I’ll have four kids. And they will come with me everywhere and be my best friends.” 

This is unbelievably refreshing to hear from a young starlet. And she and Chalamet aren’t even the only ones extolling the virtues of having kids young. Millie Bobby Brown, the 21-year-old Stranger Things actress, married her husband in 2024 and has since adopted a baby girl. Brown has only good things to say about motherhood so far. “It’s been a beautiful, amazing journey,” she said, speaking to British Vogue earlier this month. “She’s taught us so much already. Perspective is a huge thing. The smaller things in life are so much more precious. Our days are filled with lots of cuddles and laughter and love. It’s just endless joy.” It’s sadly rare to hear a celebrity speak this positively about having a family, especially so young. 

Celebs like Chalamet, Sweeney, and Brown could be leading a shift in the way young people view child-rearing. Children were once seen in showbiz as an inconvenience at best and career-ending at worst. Alternatively, they were accessories and PR opportunities—something to be adopted from abroad or raised as ‘gender ambiguous’ to prove one’s progressive credentials. Hopefully now, the stigma will begin to lift. 

Naturally, Hollywood remains a cesspit of woke ideology and preachy starlets. There is certainly no shortage of actors, writers, and directors who delight in lecturing their audiences on their cause of the day. Rachel Zegler, the 24-year-old actress best known for her live-action Snow White reboot, takes great pleasure in reminding fans how ideologically pure she is. She is unbearably pro-Palestine, hopes that Trump voters “never know peace,” and complained that the original Snow White character was not empowered enough. Others choose to champion such trendy crusades as climate change, abortion, or trans rights. 

None of this is to say that the likes of Chalamet, Sweeney, and Brown are conservative or even remotely right-wing. They are almost certainly not. And in any case, people who speculate endlessly about a celebrity’s political beliefs are almost as exhausting as celebrities who willingly tell us all their political beliefs. However, these positive comments about child-rearing and family life from young celebs are still something we should be optimistic about. This could well mark a turning point against the long tyranny of Millennial feminism—that saccharine brand of ‘women’s rights’ that preached empty intersectionality, complained about gender-pay gaps and glass ceilings, and manufactured the #MeToo moral panic. 

There are other signs that Gen Z is rejecting this at last. The era of the girl boss is over—today, the “lazy girl job” reigns supreme. TikTok and Instagram feeds are filled with tradwife influencers who, for all their many flaws, represent a backlash against a movement that put career over family and shamed anyone who refused to do the same. The idea that happiness can be bought through foreign holidays, climbing the career ladder, and endless ‘self-care’ has been shoved down Gen Zers’ throats practically since birth. Discovering that this wasn’t necessarily true has been a harsh awakening. 

That even Timothée Chalamet—the achingly hipster A-lister who is so often lauded as slaying the beast of ‘toxic masculinity’—is willing to say something so publicly pronatalist and weirdly reactionary is a promising sign. The old feminist script that says motherhood is always a trap no longer has the sway it once did. If young celebs can say out loud that parenthood is not a prison but a source of joy, they might just give their fans permission to feel the same. Perhaps the kids are alright after all.