2024: SUNY Canton Student Has a Viral Moment as Timothée Chalamet Lookalike

Famous actor Timothée Chalamet doesn’t attend SUNY Canton, but his lookalike Reed Putman does.

Reed is a graphic and multimedia design (GMMD) student from Ogdensburg who recently had a brush with fame when he entered a look-alike contest for the actor from “Dune” and “Wonka” on Sunday, Oct. 27, in New York’s Washington Square Park. . Timothée Chalamet even made a guest appearance at the event.

“I found out about the contest on Instagram,” Reed said. “Someone posted this as a joke. I noticed there was a QR code, scanned it and realized it was actually an event. So I just signed up and posted a photo for fun. I didn’t think it was going anywhere, but people really liked it.

Reed requested time off from his job at Hosmer’s Marina so he could make the 7-hour trip to the event, which turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When he arrived, resplendent with curly dark hair, pale skin and carefully crafted attire, Reed was immediately mobbed by reporters and fans.

“That’s when I realized it was serious,” he said. “For a while, all I saw was phone screens – people recording me, taking photos of me and asking to talk to me. It was overwhelming at first.”

Although Reed did not win the loosely organized competition, his brush with fame catapulted him to near-celebrity status. The 21-year-old said he was approached by reporters from GQ and Cosmopolitan. He has also been quoted or discussed by The New York Times, The New York Post, The Spokesman-Review and others. He also wrote an account of the event, “What Timothée Chalamet looked like taught me about fame,” published by CNN.

He said his social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok have grown significantly due to his current fame. “I had a lot of people following me,” he said. “It was cool to use it on social media.”

In addition to his studies at GMMD, Reed has a passion for marketing and takes classes at the School of Business and Liberal Arts in this field. “I love all kinds of media,” he said. “I love movies, games, everything. I think it all ties in well with marketing.”

He said he chose SUNY Canton because it was close to his home and it was affordable. “It’s really ahead of a lot of other universities in terms of technology,” he said. “I think about the craziest new things, like artificial intelligence. Teachers find ways to work around this problem and help implement what they learn. It’s also great that I can commute, work and save money.”

His brother, Grant Putman, is a first-year student in the GMMD program and is very interested in the university’s game design and development courses. They are both enthusiastic students.

In addition to their striking resemblance to the actor, Reed and his girlfriend, Alondra Maldonado, a law school graduate from Ogdensburg, are fans of Chalamet. He said he particularly enjoyed Paul Atreides’ performance in “Dune: Part Two” and is an avid fan of the sci-fi series.

Instead of contacting an agent about replacing him on Chalamet’s next film, Reed said his newfound fame didn’t change his aspirations. He would like to pursue a creative field such as sewing clothes, making films or modeling. He announced that he will explore these possibilities after completing his education in 2026.

“And while it was great fun to be Timothée Chalamet for an afternoon, I’m really happy to be Reed Putman,” Reed wrote for CNN.