Before he was a movie star, Timothée Chalamet was an up-and-coming Xbox 360 controller modder

Everyone has to start somewhere. This holds true even in the case of still-pretty-youthful movie stars like Timothée Chalamet. He prepared for his current ascent to the upper echelons of Hollywood—and the titles of Padishah Emperor and Kwisatz Haderach—by hosting a YouTube channel where he sold customized Xbox 360 controllers.

Vice enlisted the help of, no joke, “a security expert who investigates war crimes” for a look into the question of whether or not a YouTube channel called ModdedController360 (which last uploaded a video in 2010) belonged to Chalamet.

The publication’s attention was piqued by long-standing rumors that the anonymous boy selling cool 360 controllers painted in various patterns (red and black tiger stripe; blue and silver; a festive green and red) and shouting out Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as the “best video game out there right now” was a baby Chalamet. And so, it embarked upon an “open-source intelligence investigation.”

Though we can’t see his face, young Chalamet announces himself in the videos with a cursory “What’s good, YouTube?” before demonstrating his work. He also lets people know whether or not the controllers are available to buy (for, in one case, a reasonable $10 plus shipping and handling on top of the base controller price).

The date of the videos and Chalamet’s age match up, though the investigation needed firmer evidence before a conclusion could be drawn.

The article follows Vice’s attempts to perform forensic voice comparisons before settling on image comparisons instead. Matching details from one of Chalamet’s Instagram photos of himself as a kid with those from the ModdedController360 videos (a finger scar, chair pattern, floor and rug colors and placement) revealed “compelling” but not “definitive proof” that Chalamet was indeed the boy in the videos.

After publishing what they knew, Vice was sent a recent interview clip where Chalamet explains that he “had a YouTube channel people found” where he “used to paint-mod controllers.”

“It made 30 bucks,” he says while Zendaya laughs, sitting next to him, adding that his business ended prematurely because his parents were mad about the spray paint mess he made in the house.

To explore further documentary evidence, check out the Vice article. As of the time of writing, Chalamet does not appear to be taking any orders for $10 (plus shipping and handling) Xbox controller customizations. We will, of course, let people know if and when this changes.

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