Who Is Timothée Chalamet's Older Sister, Pauline?

Her brother Timothée Chalamet might be one of Hollywood's biggest current A-Listers, but Pauline Chalamet is a star in her own right. She is the firstborn of Marc Chalamet and Nicole Flender, and Timothée was born three years later. The French-American siblings have always been close and soon enough, they found themselves on the same career trajectory.

Timothée has dominated the industry in films like "Call Me by Your Name," "Little Women," and "Beautiful Boy." Pauline is better known for her TV career, most notably starring in the Mindy Kaling comedy series, "The Sex Lives of College Girls." While Timothée says the pair are the best of friends now, their relationship growing up included the conventional sibling rivalry. In an interview for "Little Women" shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, Timothée admitted that Pauline would hide his shoes and make her desktop screen saver a photo where she was pulling her brother's hair. "Every time I went in her room, it was like I was suffering on her screen," he said laughing.

While we know everything there is about Timothée's incredible transformation from a New York City teenager to a once-in-a-generation actor, his sister keeps her life on the down low. Her story, however, is quite interesting.

If the fact that the Chalamet siblings are both actors is surprising to you, it shouldn't be. Their upbringing basically molded them for a career in the arts. Pauline and Timothée were raised in a New York City apartment by parents with their own creative talents: a journalist and a former dancer. Not only that, but their residence was part of a rent-subsidized building in Hell's Kitchen called the Manhattan Plaza, where the majority of residents are artists of some kind.

"Oh my god, so many names went through there: Tennessee Williams. Larry David. A random actor by the name of Timothee Chalamet," Pauline told the Sydney Morning Herald of the iconic Manhattan Theater District building. "It's a building that so many artists in New York strive to live in, that once you get in, you never leave," she said. "I had so many great neighbours: musicians, opera singers, dancers. I took piano lessons my whole life, and every single one of my piano teachers lived in the building. It was just filled with them."

Her fate in acting was even more cemented by the fact that she went to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, New York's most prestigious performing arts school, which inspired the 1980 film classic "Fame."

Pauline Chalamet wasn't sure if she wanted to be an actor. She attended Bard College, where she studied political science and theater and performance. "I thought I wanted to be a human-rights lawyer or work at an NGO," Chalamet told The Arts Intel Report. It wasn't until she was cast in Judd Apatow's "The King of Staten Island" that she got her big acting break, starring alongside Pete Davidson and Marisa Tomei.

The actor later found a home at Max in the raunchy comedy series "The Sex Live of College Girls," playing the über-optimistic Essex student, Kimberly. (The show also starred Reneé Rapp, although she exited the series after brief appearances in Season 3.) Chalamet's college experience, though a tad more laid back than Kimberly's frat-party lifestyle, was relative to her character's. "The second I read the pilot, I was like, 'I get this girl. I hope this is the girl I'm auditioning for because I really like this girl,'" Chalamet told Collider. "I totally understood her."

Chalamet is not only a talent on-screen; she's a multi-hyphenate who co-owns the production company Gummy Films. She and producer and friend Rachel Walden are the brains behind Gummy Films, whose mission, according to Chalamet, is (via Bleeding Edge): "We're very focused on giving the person who's creating the idea, often the director, the power to really be in control."

Right before filming Season 3 of "Sex Lives of College Girls" in 2023, Pauline Chalamet found out that she was pregnant with her first child. It's been claimed that she shares the child with producer Rhys Raiskin, although she hasn't confirmed so herself. Co-creators Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble remember how tricky it was to keep it a secret on set. "I found out the first day of filming, and at first, in a very respectable way, she didn't want anyone to know," Noble told Entertainment Weekly. They would slowly tell more people on set in various departments when their assistance was needed. Noble continued, "And she was just so down and wonderful to work with the whole time."

Chalamet said on "The Drew Barrymore Show" that Kaling was incredibly supportive while attempting to hide her bump while filming. "Mindy does it all, so she was like, 'Yeah, okay, no problem. And this is how we'll handle it,'" she said, later adding, "I think I really pulled it off."

In a 2024 essay for Vogue, Chalamet wrote about her demanding schedule as a working mother. Her monologue is practically a metaphor for the absence of sleep with a newborn. "I feel okay sleep-wise," she wrote. "Maybe there's a hormone that makes it possible to function on an amount of sleep I never knew possible? It's so satisfying to pick the lint out of baby's toes. I wonder why as adults we don't get as much lint stuck between our toes? Is it because our toes separate more easily?"

Like her "Sex Lives" character, who participates in a food worker's strike on campus, Pauline Chalamet is outspoken about her political and moral ideals. The actor leaves passivity at home. According to Flaunt Magazine, Pauline traveled to Georgia to canvass for Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in 2022 (and his Senate campaign ended up being successful in the runoff election). She feels celebrities should be more active in the political sphere. "I'd love to see the general scope of Hollywood get more involved," Pauline told the outlet. She shared a suggestion with Flaunt, saying, "I want to see Steven Spielberg direct a commercial for Joe Biden's re-election campaign."

In March 2025, Pauline took to Instagram to call out the billionaires in President Donald Trump's inner circle. "Billionaires do not need to exist," she wrote (via the Daily Mail). People speculated that she was throwing shade at her brother Timothée Chalamet's girlfriend, former billionaire Kylie Jenner, though they seemed very cordial when Pauline and Jenner attended the 2025 Oscars.

What it's like to have a Hollywood phenomenon as a child is only an experience that few parents feel. Having two famous children is a wild feeling that Marc Chalamet and Nicole Flender can understand. It's just as surreal for Pauline Chalamet, but fame has never affected her relationship with Timothée Chalamet. "It has nothing to do with either of us. He didn't choose that. I didn't choose him as a brother; he didn't choose me as a sister," she explained to Vanity Fair. "So it feels normal, but because it doesn't impact our lives at all. It doesn't impact our relationship." Even so, Pauline is a fan of her brother in her own right.

Timothée is just as proud of his sister, especially in her mom role. In a December 2024 episode of Theo Von's podcast "This Past Weekend," the actor gleefully spoke about his niece while promoting "A Complete Unknown." Timothée said he was excited about celebrating Christmas with the first baby in the family. When Von wanted to see a photo and know the baby's name, Timothée said, "I think my sister's kept her offline." And in sibling fashion, he couldn't help but tease Pauline, saying, "You know, my sister lives in a sort of, she's with a group of people in like a forest-type thing in France."